Tim Cook Quotes

Since the beginning of the internet era, it has been pretty widely accepted that when you join an online service, whatever data you put into it belongs to you.

Whether it's Facebook or Google or the other companies, that basic principle that users should be able to see and control information about them that they themselves have revealed to the companies is not baked into how the companies work. But it's bigger than privacy. Privacy is about what you're willing to reveal about yourself.

As individuals, we have very little say about how our data is being used. I'm not worried about the privacy implications of it so much. But it seems to me that, as an individual, if I'm the one generating the data, I should have some kind of say in how it's going to be used.

Individuals deserve the right to control what happens to their personal data at any given moment -- not only after someone else has obtained it, perhaps even without consent.

Americans have a right to the security of their personal information, and the entities that hold personal information have a responsibility to protect it.

There should be an understanding and trust that your privacy and data will be protected.

I accept you need the right balance, people do need to know their privacy is protected, but when it's essential information which will be dealt with by security agencies... I do feel the public interest overrides that.

People want to have some assurance that their privacy, their data is going to be protected.

I'm speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information. They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that's wrong. And it's not the kind of company that Apple wants to be.

For me the core principles of privacy online are transparency, choice and control.

Every American should have absolute control over his or her personal information

It's high time for a fresh European alternative to enter the market, taking the existing Internet behemoths head on. What the world needs now is a cloud storage service that is not subject to uncontrolled access by intelligence agencies.

You have to fight for your privacy or you lose it.

In the Internet age, it is inevitable that corporations and government agencies will have access to detailed information about people's lives.

There's the idea that people should be able to control how the information that they're giving to websites is used and monetized in a more clear and powerful way. That's something that probably will need government action.

Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies.

With those people, I'm very far apart, because I believe that government access to communications and stored records is valuable when done under tightly controlled conditions which protect legitimate privacy interests.

I think privacy is valuable. You don't have to share everything, and it's healthy to occasionally hit the pause button and ask yourself if you're oversharing. But at the end of the day, if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide.

In an age when many of our citizens casually reveal information about themselves in social media wildly beyond anything imaginable only a decade ago, it would seem to be a useful exercise in civics to re-educate the public about the value and purpose of protecting against unwarranted government intrusion.

You can't talk about big data without talking about things like privacy and ownership.

I support safeguarding users' personally identifiable information and sensitive data like health or financial records. I also believe the government has a responsibility to punish deceptive and unfair practices that defy reasonable expectations about consumers' privacy.

We have to examine very carefully any privacy-reducing technology.

As a Facebook user, do I have control of the data Facebook keeps about me? Concretely: can I examine and modify that data using tools of my choosing which are built for my needs?

I have nothing to hide!

We need to start seeing privacy as a commons - as some kind of a public good that can get depleted as too many people treat it carelessly or abandon it too eagerly. What is privacy for? This question needs an urgent answer.