The boss of Apple Thursday called on US lawmakers to give users control of their personal data collected on the internet by allowing them to erase at will.
In an article published by the weekly Time, Tim Cook develops this idea of the protection of privacy that is dear to him and is one of the selling points of Apple.
The apple brand had hit the nail with a giant billboard in Las Vegas at the world electronics trade show. Diverting the famous advertising slogan of the “Sin City” – “what happens in Vegas remains in Vegas” -, Apple claimed: “What happens in your iPhone stays in your iPhone”.
Mr Cook has argued for a new law that gives the consumer the ability to erase “on demand” the personal data collected online.
This call from the boss of the iconic tech company will certainly displease net giants like Google, Facebook or Amazon, who derive their wealth from the exploitation of the countless information collected from users of their sites and products.
Elected officials from both sides of the US Congress have proposed measures to improve privacy, drawing in part from the General Data Protection Regulation adopted by the European Union.
“A broad sweeping privacy law should not only aim to give consumers control of their data, but also highlight those who sell your data in secret,” Cook said.
According to him, the FTC, the consumer protection commission in the United States, should establish a data exchange platform, on which companies that want to trade in it must register.
It would allow consumers to track customer-to-customer transactions and offer them the ability to “delete them on demand, for free, easily, online and once and for all”.
Mr. Cook had vociferously denounced current practices last year, claiming that personal data “is turned into a weapon against us with military efficiency”.