Tim Cook states 'Privacy is a Fundamental Human Right'

Apple has successfully kicked-off WWDC this week. The company’s CEO Tim Cook took the stage at San Jose to launch the new iOS 12, watchOS, tvOS and macOS with new features and developments. After the event, the CEO has sat down with CNN for an interview, where he has spoken about topics covering privacy, DATA, a newly introduced screen-time feature on iOS 12, immigration and his political views.

According to the interview, in the current scenario, Cook believes that privacy has gotten out of hand and people aren't aware of who's tracking them.

"The privacy thing has gotten totally out of control," Cook said. "I think most people are not aware of who is tracking them, how much they're being tracked and sort of the large amounts of detailed data that are out there about them."

He also raised his concerns about regulations stating "Generally, for me, I'm not a big fan of regulation, I think self-regulation is the best," Cook said. "But when it's not working, and in some cases, it's not working, you have to ask yourself what form of regulation might be good. And I think it's a fair question many people are asking at this point."

The CEO reiterated his viewpoint on privacy and also believes that privacy is a 'basic fundamental right' to any user and says it's unhealthy to raise fingers at a particular company like Facebook for breaching user data, instead everybody should be focusing on making the web an 'unbelievable' place.

"To me, and we feel this very deeply, we think privacy is a fundamental human right. So that is the angle that we look at it. Privacy from an American point of view is one of these key civil liberties that define what it is to be American," Cook said in the interview.

Furthermore, CEO Tim Cook has spoken about the most highlighted feature of the new iOS 12 – the Screen Time feature, which shows users their daily time spent on each app and can also customise the usage times by setting limits accordingly. CEO has said that he himself has been using this new Screen Time feature and has stated "I found I was spending a lot more time than I should," he said. "I thought I was fairly disciplined about this. And I was wrong."

Tim Cook also believes that he isn't political and confirmed that he wouldn't be running for political office.

"I'm not political. I'm not sure I would really do well in that environment. I think that I can make the greatest contribution doing what I'm doing. [...] I love getting things done and I don't love the political machine in the background. I love Apple, it is the privilege of a lifetime to be leading this company at this time, " he said.

Check out Tim Cook's full interview to CNN here.