Apple's Tim Cook has warned that mass data collection from tech companies is "surveillance" as data is "weaponised against us with military efficiency".

In a speech to privacy commissioners in Brussels, Mr Cook placed Apple in opposition to tech firms such as Google and Facebook.

"We see painfully how technology can harm, rather than help," the Apple chief executive said. "Platforms and algorithms that promise to improve our lives can actually magnify our worst human tendencies."

The Apple chief executive added that companies that harvest data can gather "stockpiles of personal data only serve to enrich the companies that collect them".

Mr Cook added that nation states and rogue actors had used data gathering to "deepen divisions, incite violence".

"This crisis is real," Mr Cook said, "it is not exaggerated, or imagined or crazy."