As an Apple user, I see it more cynically now - their whole idea of "privacy" has morphed into a strategy to prevent their competitors access to the personal data of the users, while ensuring they have more invasive access to it. This idea is offensive to me. Preventing data collection is the first step to user privacy. Once BigTech has your data, they can do anything with it in the future (despite what they say today) because of the lack of appropriate law and regulation to prevent this. I see us heading to a dystopian future where BigTech evolve into data brokers.

>Preventing data collection is the first step to user privacy.

Apple are the first to actually do this properly by cross-app tracking, forcing developers to outline data collection statements, and providing clearer sharing acceptance pages.

> Once BigTech has your data, they can do anything with it in the future (despite what they say today) because of the lack of appropriate law and regulation to prevent this.

This is entirely incorrect. HIPPAA and GDPR are very clear about PII health data, and a large corporate like Apple will be fined through the teeth violating it. Changes to the PP are communicated, and allow the user to opt out by discontinuing the service. Sure they’re sometimes opaque, but Apple has built a reputation on responsible data policies, which are frequently contrasted with those of other big tech data factories like Facebook and Google.

If I can't prevent Apple from collecting my personal data, I consider it as an intrusive violation of my privacy by Apple. Health data is a very small subset of personal data that does have some regulations. Its scope needs to be expanded to cover how BigTech, like Apple, use it. As for Apple building a reputation of having "responsible" data policies, the cynic in me remembers how Google too sold the same bullshit as "privacy respecting" company a decade or two ago - Apple seems to be following the exact same strategy with its marketing while slowly but surely escalating data collection.