They promised us freedom and privacy, because as always when revolutions are born we always have to offer something in return. Starting from “it’s free and always will be” (Facebook), the old nerds who became entrepreneurs have gradually bowed to the logic of business, so not only is Facebook no longer free (we are the product), but now there are no you can no longer trust anyone. In short: what hands have we put ourselves in? Of Siri, for example.
The latest case regarding digital security concerns Apple, the company that has established itself as the champion of the defense of our data. Remember the San Bernardino massacre of 2015? When the iPhone of one of the terrorists was found, the FBI asked the company to be able to access the data contained in the customer’s cloud, but in response it received a refusal, which continued even in the face of a judge’s injunction: appeal after appeal, the case ended when the American government made it known that it had managed to open the smartphone’s memory, without however revealing how.
Apple had won, CEO Tim Cook wrote a proud open letter to its users: «Compromising the security of our personal information can put our lives at risk: we believe that encryption is the only way to keep data safe. And we also put them out of our reach, because we believe that the contents of your iPhone are not our business.”
Now it seems, however, that this is no longer the case. In 2019, American consumer associations took Apple to court with an accusation that was, in some ways, incredible: Siri, the assistant on our phone, spied on us, even when no one called her into question. And everything that was recorded was used by Apple and then shared with partner companies to convey ads tailored to our habits. We speak in the past, but who knows what happens in the present, despite the fact that the company has always denied any responsibility. It’s a shame, however, that 5 years later he has now decided, although continuing to deny the accusations, to put an end to the matter with compensation: 95 million dollars. Which if it seems like a large amount to you (Cupertino collects around 11 billion every quarter) know that in the end it will become 20 dollars for each device (only up to 5 per user). Paying to silence a trivial accounting issue.
In short: the final decision will be given by the court on February 14, but the issue goes beyond the economic one and concerns our future, now that we are entering the promised land of artificial intelligence.
Who and what can we trust? It is not just an issue that concerns Apple, but Apple remains the symbol of the vision that was supposed to give us a better tomorrow: «The FBI request is made with good intentions, wrote Cook at the time -, but we fear it would undermine the freedom that our government has purpose of protection.” We were talking about terrorism and not advertising, it’s true. But it was a promise.