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Apple’s photoscanning plans
Apple has dramatically paused plans designed to promote child safety and stop the spread of known Child Sexual Abuse Material. Here we explain what it had in mind, and why the new features proved so controversial…
WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE HENRY
Apple was mired in controversy when, in August, it announced plans to scan for collections of known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on iCloud Photos, along with other child safety measures in Messages. Yet weeks later, it changed tack, pausing both programmes to “take additional time to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.”
The timing of Apple’s August announcements certainly caused confusion. It was the CSAM scanning that provoked the biggest backlash from privacy advocates, with the American digital rights campaign organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling it a “backdoor to your private life.”
What was Apple doing?
The important thing to note was that CSAM detection for iCloud Photos was intended to look for matches to known CSAM images. These matches were to have been acquired and validated as CSAM by a minimum of two child safety organisations, meaning innocent things like a parent taking a funny picture of their baby in the bath would not have been picked up.