Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday took time out from a product launch to promise the audience that his company will protect them from government snooping.
“We did not expect to be in this position at odds with our own government,” Cook said at the ceremony for the new iPhone SE. “But we believe strongly we have a responsibility to help you protect your data and protect your privacy. We owe it to our customers, and we owe it to our country.
“This is an issue that impacts all of us, and we will not shrink from this responsibility,” Cook added.
On Tuesday, a federal court is set to hear an appeal from Apple seeking to overturn a court order that would force the company to help authorities gain access to a device used by perpetrators of the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.
Cook has said that if his company assisted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in creating what would effectively be a hacking tool, it would be equivalent to creating “cancer.” Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has also weighed in recent weeks, saying it would be “dangerous.”
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“We need to decide as a nation how much power the government should have over our data and over our privacy,” Cook said.
