Friday, June 10, 2022 1:16 pm5 Comments

• News

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday sent a letter to a group of U.S. lawmakers asking them to pass federal privacy legislation.

Reuters:

“We strongly urge you to advance comprehensive privacy legislation as soon as possible, and we stand ready to assist in this process in the days ahead,” read the letter, which was sent to a group of law makers in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives working on the legislation.

MacDailyNews Take: Cook full letter, verbatim:

June 10, 2022

The Honorable Maria Cantwell, Chair
The Honorable Roger Wicker, Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 254 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Frank Pallone, Chair
The Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Ranking Member U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairs Cantwell and Pallone and Ranking Members Wicker and McMorris Rodgers:

Thank you for your ongoing work on privacy legislation. Apple continues to support efforts at the federal level to establish strong privacy protections for consumers, and we are encouraged by the draft proposals your offices have produced.

We recognize that there are outstanding issues to be resolved, but the areas of agreement appear to far outweigh the differences. Your drafts would provide substantial protections for consumers, and we write to offer our strong support towards achieving this shared goal. With your work, coupled with President Biden’s call to better protect children’s privacy, it appears Americans are closer than ever to obtaining meaningful privacy protections.

At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right. It is why we have consistently advocated for comprehensive privacy legislation and contributed to the process whenever possible. It is also why we’ve always built products and features that protect users and their information by default. We do this by minimizing the data we collect, processing as much data as possible on a user’s device, giving users transparency as to what data is collected and control as to how it is used, and building robust systems to protect user data across all our products and services.

While Apple will continue to innovate and develop new ways to protect user data, only Congress can provide strong privacy protections for all Americans. The continued absence of this important legislation will unfortunately perpetuate a patchwork approach to privacy rights that leaves too many without the rigorous standards we hope to see as a result of your hard work.

We strongly urge you to advance comprehensive privacy legislation as soon as possible, and we stand ready to assist in this process in the days ahead.

Sincerely,

Tim Cook CEO, Apple

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