Evidence of meeting #155 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was apple.
A video is available from Parliament.
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
I just asked a very specific question. Is the policy of the Microsoft organization to allow transfer of personal data between separate businesses owned by Microsoft?
National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada Inc.
This is a consistent purpose—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Can I have a yes or no?
National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada Inc.
It's a consistent purpose question, right? So we, as a—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
It's a question to which either yes or no is the answer.
National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada Inc.
I will have to answer that I cannot affirm or deny that there is.... I don't have that knowledge.
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Right, okay. That's not very helpful.
Could you come back to me on that question?
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Thank you.
Erik, I have in front of me two very impressive Apple devices, although my techie colleagues tell me that my iPhone is really very old.
The issue I have is that people access, for example, Facebook, very much through Apple, through the hardware that you provide. You have said that a lot of information goes into the Apple phone or the iPad, and it's not transferred elsewhere, and it's not your responsibility to transfer it elsewhere. I don't really buy that argument, because people access other platforms through your hardware.
You are one of the biggest businesses on the planet and you can deal with whom you like. Why should you be allowing businesses that don't agree with your approach to privacy to use your hardware to do business?
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
I don't know if the businesses agree or disagree with our approach. I think we'd certainly encourage.... We try to demonstrate that people can copy us in our approach to privacy.
What my team seeks to do and what I think the focus is, as I said, is to put the information on the device, but I do think we have a responsibility about where it goes. That's why we've taken steps in our operating system to get in between an application and certain data on the device.
There is some data that we've never exposed on the device, and I don't think we would. For instance, the user's phone number or hardware identifiers that could be used for tracking have never been available on our platform.
We did this with the design of a technology we call sandboxing, which actually separates applications from themselves and from data in the OS.
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
My point is that you set out the principles. The chairman set them out, and it's really complex and difficult for us to legislate on these issues, as we're all discovering.
You can do business with Facebook or not. You could disallow access to Facebook through your hardware if you so chose if they did not adhere to the principles. Facebook has done your industry a lot of damage. Why do you continue to do business with them?
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
I guess if you're talking about their availability on the App Store, I think there are two—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Well, it's a fact that so many people access Facebook through your devices.
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
Right, so on one hand, under the hypothetical, if the Facebook application wasn't there, Facebook offers a website, and people would still be able to access Facebook through the website, through our browser, or through a competing browser.
If we go further down that route and say that we should actually begin imposing what I would call—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
It's not imposing; it's about agreement. If you believe in your principles and you're an ethical company, then you should deal with people who abide by your principles. That's within your power.
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
Well, I suppose what's within my power are the technical controls. My approach is to say that underneath any application or any service running on the phone, we should find technical measures to keep the user in control of their data.
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
What you could do is not do business with Facebook. You could choose an approach whereby you set out your principles and you apply them in dealing with who you want. Why don't you do that?
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
If I take that as the availability of Facebook on our App Store, it would not measurably impact privacy to withdraw that application from the App Store.
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
You really don't?
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Do you think you'd get a bit of a headline?
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
We'd get headline, sure. I don't personally believe that headlines necessarily impact privacy, with respect. I think users would—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
Don't you think it would make a substantial impact on the approach that Facebook has been taking?
Manager of User Privacy, Apple Inc.
As you point out, Facebook is an extremely popular service. Users would turn to web technologies in other ways to continue to access Facebook. I don't personally see a way that either Apple could or, out of respect for an individual's privacy, that I would be—
Member, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons
What concerns me is that you're presenting yourselves as the good guys, but you're facilitating the bad guys through the use of your hardware.