Apple’s Eric Neunschwander Defends Encryption and Warns of Bill’s Secrecy Provisions

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Vice Chairs, and members of the committee.

My name is Eric Neunschwander, and I'm the Senior Director of User Privacy and Child Safety at Apple,

where I've been a software engineer for 19 years.

I worked as the first data analysis engineer on the first iPhone and founded Apple's privacy engineering team.

Today, my job is to make sure that Apple's products and services keep our users' information safe.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

As you know, this may be one of the last times we're permitted to discuss the consequences of this legislation publicly.

That's because of the bill's secrecy provisions,

which forbid companies like Apple from even discussing the orders we receive with our users or the public.

So today, I want to be clear about how we approach privacy at Apple.

And I want to be clear on why encryption is so important to defending the privacy and security of people in Canada and around the world.