Apple CEO Urges US to Follow EU’s GDPR on Privacy

The U.S. should follow Europe’s lead and implement a privacy law like the general data protection regulation, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Wednesday in Brussels. The world should celebrate implementation of the GDPR, which showed good policy and political will can “protect the rights of everyone,” he said at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. He dismissed rivals’ claims that privacy legislation will stifle innovation, calling that argument “destructive.” The world will “never achieve technology's true potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it,” he said, citing a 2010 quote from former Apple CEO Steve Jobs: “Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in plain language, and repeatedly.” Cook described a modern “data industrial complex,” in which personal data is weaponized against users with “military efficiency.”