Tim Cook: Don’t worry about a Facebook-style data breach at Apple

In the wake of a massive Facebook data breach that affected some 50 million users, Tim Cook is assuring Apple users that it could never happen to them for one very simple reason: Because Apple collects as little data on its users as possible.

In a new interview with Vice News Tonight on HBO, Cook explained that protecting data goes to the heart of Apple’s product design, and in fact the company challenges itself to collect as little as possible and then to encrypt what it does collect. By the end of the process, “even Apple can’t access it.”

While some people have noted that Apple might be able to improve its products, notably Siri, if collected more data about users, Cook disagreed, calling it a “false trade-off” and saying that “whoever’s telling you that–it’s a bunch of bunk.”

For Cook, privacy, encryption, and limited data collection aren’t just business decisions, but part of being a patriotic American.”I see privacy as central to liberty,” Cook told Vice News Tonight. “I don’t want to see it slip away. Because it’s like a part of us slipping away. I mean when I say ‘us,’ I don’t mean us Apple; I mean us as Americans.”