KernowDamo: Apple’s billion-dollar purchase of an Israeli AI firm has sparked controversy over privacy and growing BDS pressure seems certain to follow.
Right, so Apple has just bought an Israeli company whose technology reads facial micromovements to infer speech, and that decision immediately pulls Apple into a political space it has spent years trying to pretend it can sidestep. Until now, Apple could sell itself as a neutral platform company, focused on privacy, above the fray of boycotts, sanctions, and ethical supply-chain fights. That insulation is gone. When Apple chooses to integrate Israeli surveillance-adjacent AI at the core of its ecosystem, it doesn’t matter how carefully the feature is deployed or how many privacy slogans follow - the relationship itself becomes the issue. For BDS supporters, this isn’t about settings or safeguards, it’s about institutional choice, and Apple has now made one. And for everyone else, the timing matters, because this lands just as Apple is asking users to trust its AI ambitions without explaining their limits. That combination removes deniability, narrows Apple’s room to manoeuvre, and turns what used to be a background political argument into a live liability sitting inside Apple’s privacy story.
