Apple, Google, Uber say they would refuse to build Muslim registry

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google, Apple, and Uber clarified their positions on President-elect Donald Trump’s comments about a possible Muslim registry, BuzzFeed News reports.

“In relation to the hypothetical of whether we would ever help build a ‘muslim registry’ - we haven’t been asked, of course we wouldn’t do this and we are glad - from all that we’ve read - that the proposal doesn’t seem to be on the table,” a spokesperson for Google told BuzzFeed News in an email.

BuzzFeed News asked all three companies whether they would help build or provide data for a Muslim registry. An Apple spokesperson said: “We think people should be treated the same no matter how they worship, what they look like, who they love. We haven’t been asked and we would oppose such an effort.”

Uber said “No,” in response to the same questions, clarifying that it would not help build or provide data for a Muslim registry. Amazon did not respond to repeated request for comment. Oracle declined to respond to the same questions about a Muslim registry. It also declined to say whether the National Security Agency is still an Oracle customer. Oracle’s refusal to comment comes one day after CEO Safra Catz announced that she would join the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump, while remaining at Oracle.

Trump has danced around the possibility of creating a Muslim registry. When asked directly, he has not denied wanting a Muslim registry. The possibility of a registry came up as a result of Trump’s comments about Muslims and his intention to build a database of Syrian refugees. After the election, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a member of Trump’s transition team, proposed reinstating a Muslim database similar to National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a suspended program that Kobach helped design.

As of Saturday, December 17 morning, more than 1800 Silicon Valley engineers and employees signed a pledge refusing to cooperate with the administration of President-elect Donald Trump on his proposal to build a Muslim registry and implement mass deportations of minority communities. In the pledge published online, they remind the President-elect of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust among other crimes against humanity.