OPINION: Upcoming Senate Hearing with Big Tech CEOs is Missing Biggest Fish

You don’t have to be a parent of children to be concerned about our ever-changing digital world and the unlimited ways for them to be harmed online.

Whether it be inappropriate content, cyberbullying, threats from violent and sexual predators, or organizing illegal activity, our children have never been at greater risk.

Recognizing this undeniable fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an important hearing with five ‘Big Tech’ CEOs on January 31.

The hearing will specifically focus on combatting child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).

Voluntary and negotiated participation has been secured from the CEOs of Meta, X, Snap, TikTok, Snap, and Discord, all of whom will provide important details on their efforts, industry best practices, and changing threats to children.

However, one Big Tech CEO is not participating, and his absence cannot be ignored.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is not currently scheduled to testify.

While it is important for Congress to convene social media company CEOs to talk about the importance of protecting our kids online, Congress also deserves an explanation from Apple about what it is doing to keep children safe online due to its outsized role in getting children online.

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. teens own an iPhone. This means that Apple’s devices and App Store are the most common ways children access digital platforms.

Any hearing about protecting children online without Apple is a missed opportunity to get insight from all the key players who have a role to play in protecting kids online. Without Apple testifying alongside other Big Tech CEOs, the Senate Judiciary Committee members will not receive the full picture of what policies should be implemented to make online platforms safer for kids.

In fact, Apple is uniquely positioned compared to other Big Tech companies to be able to help parents keep their children safe online: Apple already collects and houses personal data such as birthdays, addresses, and credit card information. Their app store could easily empower parents to approve the apps their children download without raising the data security concerns that parental consent on other platforms would spur.

Requiring Apple to set up parental control measures would give parents greater control and offer a seamless approach to monitoring their child’s online presence without having to hand over personal information to dozens of apps.

If called as a witness, the Senate Judiciary Committee would also be given the opportunity to ask Apple’s CEO to explain what it is doing to combat CSAM and protect children online.

Despite the vast number of Americans who use iPhones to connect to the digital world, Apple lags far behind its peers in terms of reporting CSAM to law enforcement.

When other Big Tech companies are submitting tens of millions of tips to law enforcement, Apple only submitted 234 tips in 2022.

Recently, survivors of child sexual abuse met with Senators to urge them to require Apple to detect and remove CSAM from iCloud and for Apple CEO Tim Cook to testify before Congress on this important issue.

The January 31 Senate Judiciary Committee is an opportunity for Cook to update Senators and the American public about Apple’s efforts to protect America’s children online.

The other five participating CEOs will be testifying under oath about what their companies are doing and what legislative solutions will be helpful. It is time to understand why Apple hasn’t chosen to make those optional features mandatory.

This hearing is vitally important, and for it to help Congress, it should include the most important figure on the issue at hand.

Matt Mackowiak is the Chairman of the Travis County GOP, president of Potomac Strategy Group, and a former Bush administration official, a Bush-Cheney re-election campaign veteran and a former press secretary to two U.S. Senators.