Facebook VP, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan (L) and Apple Senior ... [+]
Facebook and Apple, which have spent more than a year sparring over privacy, adopted an astoundingly civil tone Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — singing from the same “privacy is a human right” songbook.
Apple has made safeguarding consumer privacy a selling point for its devices, which serve as repositories for sensitive health and financial data. Jane Horvath, the company’s senior director of global privacy, emphasized how this concept is baked into the product design.
“Tim is incredibly committed to privacy and it flows through the company,” said Horvath, referring to CEO Tim Cook.
Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, said the social network — which was slapped with a $5 billion fine last year for violating consumer privacy — said the company is making an effort to be more transparent about what data it’s collecting and how that information is used.
Just because it’s ad-supported doesn’t make it less respectful of privacy, Egan said, describing privacy as “a fundamental right that people have”— in a claim that Apple’s Horvath chose not to challenge.
“I don’t want to opine on what my competitors are doing,” said Horvath.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Rebecca Slaughter declined to comment on the privacy conduct of specific companies — other than to say that people have little appreciation for how much data is collected about them.
“The question is, what is the minimum amount of data that can be collected, shared and used by people to ensure they are not being harmed,” Slaughter said.
