Apple taps ex-Facebook employee turned critic for privacy product manager role

9to5 Staff | Jan 9 2019 - 6:29 am PT

Former Facebook privacy and policy employee Sandy Parakilas has been hired by Apple, according to a report by The Financial Times. Parakilas left Facebook six years ago following less than a year and a half with the company after his user privacy concerns fell on deaf ears internally.

In March of 2018, Parakilas testified in front of UK Parliament on privacy concerns surrounding Facebook and the data they collect.

I think one of the key things to understand is that if you do not have access to [Facebook] developer’s data storage, which you would not have unless you sued them or they granted it to you willingly, then you cannot really see what data they have, because what is exposed to the public view is not indicative.

…

Yes. I was one of the people raising concerns. There was a lot of press at the time suggesting that this was potentially violating people’s privacy and that there were some real concerns here. It was a known issue. What has changed is that people now realise how many things you can do with large amounts of data and so now they are connecting those two dots and we have the current scandal.

Following Parakilas’ departure from the social media giant, he later took jobs at Uber and the Center for Humane Technology — an organization devoted to regulation for tech giants.

Apple’s nabbing of Parakilas comes as the company looks to continually ramp up its privacy efforts. This week, as CES 2019 marches on, Apple looms over the Vegas strip with an enormous black and white ad dedicated to privacy.