Reuters / Yves Herman
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has called for the introduction of much tougher U.S. data protection laws in alarming remarks warning that personal data is being “weaponised against us with military efficiency.” In a speech in Brussels, Belgium, Cook said: “We shouldn't sugar-coat the consequences. This is surveillance.” He said the "data industrial complex," in which billions of dollars are traded on the basis of people's likes and dislikes tracked by tech firms and companies, “should make us very uncomfortable, it should unsettle us.” Cook praised the EU's GDPR laws, which placed much stricter rules on how personal data is handled by businesses and organisations when it was introduced earlier this year. “It is time for the rest of the world, including my home country, to follow your lead,” he told European politicians. “We at Apple are in full support of a comprehensive federal privacy law in the United States.”