Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote to Maria Cantwell (d-wa), chairman of the commerce, science and Transportation Committee of the US Senate, and frank Pallone (d-nj), chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee today. Cook advocated strong privacy legislation at the federal level. The letter appears to be a response to a proposed bipartisan bill called the US data privacy and Protection Act, which deals with the types of data companies can collect from individuals and how they use it.
Cook said in the letter, Apple We will continue to support efforts at the federal level to establish strong privacy protection for consumers. Cook reiterated Apple's belief that privacy is a fundamental human right. Cook said that despite Apple's efforts to protect users' privacy, "only Congress can provide strong privacy protection for all Americans."
The full text of Cook's letter is as follows:
Dear Cantwell and Pallone, and senior members of wicker and MC Morris Rodgers
Thank you for your continued work on privacy legislation. Apple continues to support efforts at the federal level to establish strong privacy protection for consumers. We are encouraged by the draft proposal put forward by your office.
We recognize the outstanding issues to be resolved, but the areas of agreement seem to be far greater than differences. Your draft will provide substantial protection for consumers. We are writing to provide strong support for the realization of this common goal. Through your work and President Biden's call for better protection of children's privacy, Americans seem closer than ever to meaningful privacy protection.
At Apple, we believe that privacy is a basic human right. This is why we have always advocated comprehensive privacy legislation and contributed to this process as much as possible. This is why we always build products and features that protect users and their information by default. To this end, we do this by minimizing the collected data, processing as much data as possible on user devices, making users aware of the collected data and controlling the transparency of its use, and building a powerful system to protect all our user data. Products and services.
Although Apple will continue to innovate and develop new ways to protect user data, only Congress can provide strong privacy protection for all Americans. Unfortunately, the continued absence of this important legislation will perpetuate the patchwork approach to privacy, leaving too many people without the strict standards we hope to see through your efforts.
We strongly urge you to move forward with comprehensive privacy legislation as soon as possible, and we stand ready to assist in this process in the coming days.