“Six major web and internet service companies, including AT&T Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google, will detail their consumer data privacy practices to a U.S. Senate panel on Sept. 26, according to a congressional statement on Wednesday,” David Shepardson and Susan Heavey report for Reuters.
“The Senate hearing will give the six technology-related companies, which also include Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc and Charter Communications Inc companies ‘an opportunity to explain their approaches to privacy,’ Republican U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune,” Shepardson and Heavey report. “They will also testify on ‘how they plan to address new requirements from the European Union and California, and what Congress can do to promote clear privacy expectations without hurting innovation,’ Thune said.”
“The witnesses at the Sept. 26 Senate hearing include Google’s chief privacy officer, Twitter’s global data protection officer and Apple’s vice president for software technology,” Shepardson and Heavey report. “The White House said in July it was working to develop consumer data privacy policies and officials had been meeting major firms as it looked to eventually seeing the policies enshrined in legislation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should come out of this smelling like a rose. The others, not so much.
Note: Hair Force One, Craig Federighi, is Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.
SEE ALSO:
Trump administration working on federal data privacy policy – July 27, 2018
California’s data privacy law highlights growing frustration with tech industry – July 17, 2018
U.S. House Republicans demand answers from Apple, Google on privacy, data practices – July 9, 2018
California lawmakers approve data-privacy bill despite opposition from Google, Facebook, advertisers – June 29, 2018
Apple highlights user privacy as Facebook exec steps down – June 14, 2018
Federighi is great on an Apple Event stage but is he ready to get an inquisition from those congresscritters? That’s a whole different ballgame.
Might this also be an audition of sorts for his future job as CEO of Apple?
Bud Tribble vice president of software is the lucky man.
Don’t think Federighi is going.
In today’s New York Times is an interview with Venture Capitalist Rebecca Lynn. This quote jumped out at me:
Q What’s your biggest concern?
A I think society is going to have a come-to-Jesus moment about what the true state of privacy is. It isn’t existent today, and I think people are just sort of blissfully ignorant of that fact. If you look at these companies and what they have on you, I think most people would be highly alarmed.
Talking about the importance of privacy is great, and lots of companies are changing only because they’re in the spotlight.
Meanwhile, the feds seem to be saying, “Your privacy belongs to us.”
So long as they pursue back doors and want the capability to sneak-and-peak, our data isn’t really private. They will shout “National Security!” when they want something, because those are the magic words which almost always work.