Last September Apple publicized "A message from Tim Cook about Apple's commitment to your privacy." In another area of Apple's website there's a page about privacy where they walk you through each of their products showing you how privacy is specifically tailored for it. More recently we posted a report titled "Apple & 140 Tech Companies Sign Letter Urging Obama to Support Encryption." Our report covered the full letter.

One of the highlighted segments of that letter read as follows: "We urge you to reject any proposal that U.S. companies deliberately weaken the security of their products. We request that the White House instead focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology. Such policies will in turn help to promote and protect cybersecurity, economic growth, and human rights, both here and abroad."

Late this afternoon TechCrunch reporter Matthew Panzarino reported that Apple's CEO Tim Cook "was honored last night for 'corporate leadership' during EPIC's Champions of Freedom event in Washington. Cook spoke remotely to the assembled audience on guarding customer privacy, ensuring security and protecting their right to encryption."

Cook told the audience that at Apple, "We believe the customer should be in control of their own information. You might like these so-called free services, but we don't think they're worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. And we think someday, customers will see this for what it is."

He later added that "Like many of you, we at Apple reject the idea that our customers should have to make trade-offs between privacy and security. We can, and we must provide both in equal measure. We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it." For more on this, read the full TechCrunch report.

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