Apple CEO Tim Cook promises to fight for DACA, user privacy

Apple CEO Tim Cook said he plans on fighting for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

“No matter who is in the White House, the things I’m focused on are going to be the same,” Cook told ABC News. “I am focused on DACA. We have 450 folks in Apple, employed at Apple, who are employed on DACA. I want those folks protected. Not just the 450 but the broader DACA people in America.”

“I will fight until my toes point up on the subject because I think that it is so core to who we are as a people that we not turn our back on people that came into the country as kids, they were brought here well before they could make a decision on their own,” he continued. “These people are the core of what an American is.” 

The comments come after the Supreme Court indicated that it could allow President Trump to end the DACA program, which is intended to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as minors.

Conservative justices on the high court indicated that they were concerned that authorizing a judicial review of the program could give judges too much power over executive agency decisions.

“Can you help me understand what is the limiting principle?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Theodore Olson, one of two lawyers arguing to preserve DACA. “I hear a lot of facts, sympathetic facts, you put out there, and they speak to all of us. But what’s the limiting principle?” 

Cook also said he would advocate for bolstering user privacy as his and other major tech companies have been under intense congressional scrutiny for giving away and selling users’ personal data.

“We don’t want to know all the details about your life. We’re not trying to vacuum up all your data and form it into a profile,” Cook said. “We want your information held on your device. It’s between you and your phone, not you and Apple. And so it’s a very different kind of approach than some companies take.

“We view privacy as a fundamental human right,” he continued. “And from our point of view, I’m personally very worried that in a world where nothing is private, then freedom of expression just evaporates, and if freedom of expression evaporates, this is just – this is a classic part of what it means to be an American.”