Good afternoon.
And John, thank you so much for that generous
introduction and for hosting us today.
It's a privilege to join you and to learn from this
knowledgeable panel on this fitting occasion
of Data Privacy Day.
A little more than two years ago, joined by my
good friend, the much-missed Giovanni
Bittarelli and data protection regulators from
around the world, I spoke in Brussels about the
emergence of a data industrial complex.
At that gathering, we asked ourselves what kind
of world do we want to live in?
Two years later, we should now take a hard
look at how we've answered that question.
The fact is that an interconnected ecosystem
of companies and data brokers, purveyors of fake
news and peddlers of division, of trackers and
hucksters just looking to make a quick buck is more
present in our lives than it has ever been.
It has never been so clear how it degrades our
fundamental right to privacy first and our
social fabric by consequence.
As I've said before, if we accept as normal and
unavoidable that everything in our lives
can be aggregated and sold, then we lose so
much more than data.
We lose the freedom to be human.
And yet this is a hopeful new season, a time of
thoughtfulness and reform, and the most concrete
progress of all is thanks to many of you.
Proving cynics and doomsayers wrong, the GDPR
has provided an important foundation for privacy
rights around the world and its implementation and
enforcement must continue.
But we can't stop there.
We must do more.
We're already seeing hopeful steps forward
worldwide, including a successful ballot
initiative strengthening consumer protections right
here in California.
Together, we must send a universal humanistic
response to those who claim a right to users'
private information about what should not and will
not be tolerated.
As I said in Brussels two years ago, it is certainly
time not only for a comprehensive privacy law
here in the United States but also for worldwide
laws and new international agreements that enshrine
the principles of data minimization, user knowledge,
user access, and data security across the globe.
At Apple, spurred on by the leadership of many of
you in the privacy community, these have been
two years of unceasing action.
We have worked to not only deepen our own core
privacy principles but to create ripples of positive
change across the industry as a whole.
We've spoken out time and again for strong
encryption without backdoors, recognizing
that security is the foundation of privacy.
We've set new industry standards for data
minimization, user control, and on-device
processing for everything from location data to your
contacts and photos.
At the same time that we've led the way in
features that keep you healthy and well, we've
made sure that technologies like a blood
oxygen sensor and an ECG come with peace of mind
that your health data stays yours.
And last, but not least, we are deploying powerful
new requirements to advance user privacy
throughout the App Store ecosystem.
The first is a simple but revolutionary idea that we
call the Privacy Nutrition Label.
Every app, including our own, must share their data
collection and privacy practices, information
that the App Store presents in a way every
user can understand and act on.
The second is called App Tracking Transparency.
At its foundation, ATT is about returning control to
users about giving them a say over how
their data is handled.
Users have asked for this feature for a long time.
We have worked closely with developers to give
them the time and resources to implement it.
We are passionate about it because we think it has
great potential to make things better for
everybody because ATT responds to a very real issue.
Earlier today, we released a new paper called A Day
in the Life of Your Data.
It tells the story of how apps that we use every day
contain an average of six trackers.
This code often exists to surveil and identify users
across apps, watching and recording their behavior.
In this case, what the user sees is not
always what they get.
Right now, users may not know whether the apps they
use to pass the time, to check in with their
friends, or to find a place to eat may, in fact,
be passing on information about the photos they've
taken, the people in their contact list, or location
data that reflects where they eat, sleep, or pray.
As the paper shows, it seems no piece of
information is too private or personal to be
surveilled, monetized, and aggregated into a
360-degree view of your life.
The end result of all of this is that you are no
longer the customer.
You are the product.
When ATT is in full effect, users will have
a say over this kind of tracking.
Some may well think that sharing this degree of
information is worth it for more targeted ads.
Many others, I suspect, will not.
Just as most appreciated it when we built a similar
functionality into Safari limiting web
trackers several years ago.
We see developing these kinds of privacy-centric
features and innovations as a core
responsibility of our work.
We always have.
We always will.
The fact is that the debate over ATT is a
microcosm of a debate we've been having for a
long time, one where our point of view is very clear.
Technology does not need vast troves of personal
data stitched together across dozens of websites
and apps in order to succeed.
Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it.
We are here today because the path of least
resistance is rarely the path of wisdom.
If a business is built on misleading users on data
exploitation, on choices that are no choices at
all, then it does not deserve our praise.
It deserves reform.
We should not look away from the bigger picture.
At a moment of rampant disinformation and
conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no
longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology
that says all engagement is good engagement.
The longer, the better.
And all with a goal of collecting as much
data as possible.
Too many are still asking the question how much can
we get away with when they need to be asking what
are the consequences.
What are the consequences of prioritizing conspiracy
theories and violent incitement simply because
of the high rates of engagement?
What are the consequences of not just tolerating but
rewarding content that undermines public trust
and lifesaving vaccinations?
What are the consequences of seeing thousands of
users join extremist groups and then perpetuating
an algorithm that recommends even more?
It is long past time to stop pretending that this
approach doesn't come with a cost, a polarization, of
lost trust, and, yes, of violence.
A social dilemma cannot be allowed to become
a social catastrophe.
I think the past year, and certainly recent events,
have brought home the risk of this for all of us as a
society and as individuals as much as anything else.
Long hours spent cooped up at home, the challenge of
keeping kids learning when schools are closed, the
worry and uncertainty about what the future
would hold, all of these things threw into sharp
relief how technology can help and how it can
be used to harm.
Will the future belong to the innovations that make
our lives better, more fulfilled, and more human,
or will it belong to those tools that pries our
attention to the exclusion of everything else,
compounding our fears and aggregating extremism to
serve ever-more invasively targeted ads over
all other ambitions?
At Apple, we made our choice a long time ago.
We believe that ethical technology is technology
that works for you.
It's technology that helps you sleep, not keeps you
up, that tells you when you've had enough, that
gives you space to create or draw or write or learn,
not refresh just one more time.
It's technology that can fade into the background
when you're on a hike or going for a swim but is
there to warn you when your heart rate spikes or
help you when you've had a nasty fall.
And that all of this always puts privacy and
security first because no one needs to trade away
the rights of their users to deliver a great product.
Call us nïve.
But we still believe that technology made by people,
for people, and with people's wellbeing in
mind is too valuable a tool to abandon.
We still believe that the best measure of technology
is the lives it improves.
We are not perfect.
We will make mistakes.
That's what makes us human.
But our commitment to you, now and always, is that we
will keep faith with the values that have inspired
our products from the very beginning because what we
share with the world is nothing without the trust
our users have in it.
To all of you who have joined us today, please
keep pushing us all forward, keep setting high
standards that put privacy first, and take new and
necessary steps to reform what is broken.
We've made progress together and we must make
more because the time is always right to be bold
and brave in service of a world where, as Giovanni
Bittarelli put it, technology serves people
and not the other way around.
Thank you very much.