NLPC presented a shareholder proposal today at Apple‘s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders that asked the company to report on its AI data privacy efforts. NLPC accused Apple of implementing “privacy friendly” features for its own AI offerings but outsourcing unethical data collection and usage practices to its competitors, OpenAI and Meta, for substantial fees. Apple’s strategy is reminiscent of its Google search deal, which pays Apple $18 billion annually in profit, to outsource search engine data collection to a rival.
The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on pages 79-80 of its 2025 proxy statement. NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
Presenting the proposal at the meeting was Luke Perlot, associate director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. An audio recording of his presentation can be found here, and a transcript of his three-minute remarks follows:
Good morning.
Artificial intelligence is one of the most powerful innovations of our time, but its development relies on vast amounts of data—data that is sometimes collected unethically or even illegally.
Apple has long marketed itself as a privacy-first company, claiming that privacy is a “fundamental human right.” Yet, Apple’s actions contradict its words. The Company recently announced a partnership with OpenAI, a firm that has been accused of scraping personal data without consent, violating copyright laws, and even using private conversations to train its AI models. OpenAI is now facing a high-profile lawsuit from The New York Times for allegedly incorporating proprietary content into its training data without permission.
Apple has also discussed an AI partnership with Meta, a company notorious for privacy violations. These partnerships raise serious concerns about whether Apple is truly committed to protecting user data—or if it is outsourcing its ethical responsibilities to others while quietly benefiting from their data practices.
Apple is running the same playbook it ran with its Alphabet search deal. The Company pretends to be privacy friendly, but the monetization potential of its massive user base is too large to pass up, so it outsources its unethical practices to another company in exchange for large fees. Apple is trying to do the same thing with AI – which is to pretend to be privacy focused while collecting a large fee to let OpenAI or Meta spy on Apple’s customers.
Consumers demand privacy. Companies that provide it will earn trust, while those that don’t will face backlash, lawsuits, and lost market share.
Transparency is in the best interest of Apple’s shareholders, customers, and long-term success. We urge you to vote FOR Proposal Number 4.
Thank you.
Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Apple annual meeting here.
Listen to Luke Perlot’s presentation of the proposal at the meeting here.
Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.
