This ad from Apple won the US AICP (Association if Independent Commercial Producers) top award, directed by Ivan Zacharias of Smuggler.
‘Flock’ is a prescient contemporary spin on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, purporting to demonstrate that we’re watched everywhere apart from when we’re wisely sticking to iPhones.
Privacy is a growing issue although Big Tech seems unwilling to do much about it. Is Apple really as secure as it keeps telling us – it had better be. Holding company media operations hardly help of course, banging on relentlessly about “personalisation.” Quite how they can this without invading people’s privacy only they seem to know (and they’re not telling us.)
This is a poor article. Apple has, and often does, tout what they do to prevent privacy and offer personalisation.
Apple’s approach to privacy and personalization is quite distinctive compared to many Big Tech companies. They emphasise on-device processing, meaning much of the personalization happens directly on your device rather than in the cloud. For example, features like Siri suggestions or personalized photo albums analyze data locally, minimizing the amount of personal information sent to Apple’s servers. This design reduces exposure to potential breaches or misuse of data.
Moreover, Apple uses techniques like differential privacy to gather useful insights from large user groups without identifying individuals, allowing them to improve services while preserving anonymity. They also offer transparency tools, such as the App Privacy Report and Privacy Nutrition Labels, helping users understand what data apps collect and how it’s used. Apple are also not in the business of selling ads.
In terms of security, Apple implements strong encryption across devices and services, including end-to-end encryption for iMessage and FaceTime, ensuring only the intended recipients can access the content. They also tightly control their ecosystem with strict App Store guidelines to limit malicious or invasive apps.
Of course, while no system is perfectly secure, Apple’s commitment to integrating privacy into the core of their hardware and software sets them apart. Their balance of personalization without extensive data harvesting reflects a genuine effort to protect user privacy, even if all the technical details aren’t fully public.
Obviously this could all very well be marketing BS but it’s wrong to make close with “and they’re not telling us”, when they clearly do. Poorly researched and poorly written.