Tim Cook on privacy: 'We shouldn't give in to scare-mongering'

Apple CEO Tim Cook was recently interviewed by The Telegraph, and he took the time to further expand upon Apple's firm stance on privacy, calling it "a basic human right."

"None of us should accept that the government or a company or anybody should have access to all of our private information," Cook told The Telegraph. "This is a basic human right. We all have a right to privacy. We shouldn't give it up. We shouldn't give in to scare-mongering or to people who fundamentally don't understand the details."

While Cook is a firm believer that Apple should protect and encrypt its users' data, he also clarified that he thinks "terrorism is horrible and must be stopped," going so far as to say that "these people shouldn't exist" and that "they should be eliminated."

But Cook doesn't believe the answer is in allowing governments back-door access, which he says would cause people's personal data including health and financial information to eventually "be taken."

Cook also argues that "terrorists will encrypt" because "they know what to do," suggesting that "if we don't encrypt, the people we affect [by cracking down on privacy] are the good people."

Apple, Tim Cook says, doesn't "make money selling your information to somebody else," pointing out that while it could increase profits by doing so, collecting and selling data to third-parties is "not in our values system."

Cook's comments come just weeks after he visited the White House to defend Apple's default encryption on its iPhones, which government agencies like the NSA have argued only make it easier for criminals to go undetected.

You can read Tim Cook's full interview over at The Telegraph.