Apple says it will oppose governments requiring the company to detect images other than child abuse. But, at the same time, its nuances are that its approach is the least invasive solution.
Apple announced last week that it would match photos on your iPhone with a database of photos of known child abuse. Anyone who stores several of those photos in iCloud will be reported to law enforcement.
The company has been criticized for spying on its own users. The main fear is that it will not stop at child abuse and that some countries will oblige Apple to search iPhones for other material as well. Think of a broad concept such as terrorist propaganda or images about homosexuality in countries where it is still severely punished.
Apple is now defending itself against those criticisms, saying it would challenge such attempts by governments. ‘In the past, we have been asked by governments to make changes that violate users’ privacy and have always refused. We will continue to do so in the future.’
However, that is quite relative. According to Reuters, that could, in some cases, lead to lawsuits that shouldn’t even be publicly disclosed. At the same time, Apple has already folded in the past. For example, until 2017, FaceTime was not available in Saudi Arabia, among others, due to a ban on encrypted conversations.
Meanwhile, Apple also says its way of working is the least invasive. For example, there is only human control when multiple images of child abuse are recognized. Apple says that that way, there is no access to other material on the iPhone. The future will show how watertight that system is in practice.
The company also believes that the chance that hackers will place such images on your phone via a vulnerability is very small. Finally, Apple says that its system does not currently scan video images but that the system will be expanded in the future.
