Tim Cook calls for strong US privacy law, rips “data-industrial complex”

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC) in Brussels. (credit: European Data Protection Supervisor)

Apple CEO Tim Cook today called on the US government to pass "a comprehensive federal privacy law," saying that tech companies that collect wide swaths of user data are engaging in surveillance.

Speaking at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC) in Brussels, Cook said that businesses are creating "an enduring digital profile" of each user and that the trade of such data "has exploded into a data-industrial complex."

"This is surveillance," Cook said. "And these stockpiles of personal data serve only to enrich the companies that collect them. This should make us very uncomfortable."

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