Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child sexual abuse images | An apple

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Apple has unveiled plans to scan its iPhones in the United States for images of child sexual abuse, drawing praise from child protection groups, but raising concerns some security researchers could abuse the system, including by eyeing governments. to monitor its citizens.

The tool designed to detect known child sexual abuse images, called NeuralMatch, will scan the photos before they’re uploaded to iCloud. If you find a match, the image will be reviewed by a human. If child abuse is confirmed, the user’s account will be disabled and the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified.

Separately, Apple plans to scan users’ encrypted messages for sexually explicit content as a child safety measure, which has also worried privacy advocates. The detection system will only flag images already in the center’s database of known child abuse images. It is assumed that parents who take pictures of their child in the bathroom do not need to worry. But the researchers say the matching tool – which doesn’t “see” such images, just mathematical “fingerprints” they represent – can be used for various purposes.

Matthew Green, a cryptographic researcher at Johns Hopkins University, warned that the system could be used to frame innocent people by sending seemingly harmless images designed to elicit matches to child abuse images. This can fool Apple’s algorithm and law enforcement alert. “The researchers were able to do it quite easily,” he said of the ability to fool such systems.

Other abuses could include government monitoring of dissidents or protesters. “What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘This is a list of the files we want you to scan,’” Green asked. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”

Tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others have for years been sharing digital fingerprints of known child sexual abuse images. Apple used these files to scan user files stored in its iCloud service, which are not as securely encrypted as the data on the device, for child pornography.

Apple has been under government pressure for years to allow increased monitoring of encrypted data. Introducing new security measures requires Apple to strike a delicate balance between suppressing child exploitation while maintaining its high-level commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.

But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading online civil liberties company, called Apple’s privacy protection settlement a “shocking shift for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.”

Meanwhile, the computer scientist who invented PhotoDNA more than a decade ago, the technology used by law enforcement to identify child abuse images online, acknowledged the potential for abuse in Apple’s system, but said it far outweighed the necessity to fight child sexual abuse. .

“Is it possible? Of course, sure. But is that something that worries me?” said Hani Farid, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who said a lot of other software designed to secure devices from various threats did not suffer from “this kind of mission creep.” No. For example, WhatsApp provides users with end-to-end encryption to protect their privacy, but it also uses a system to detect malware and warn users against clicking on malicious links.

Apple was one of the first major companies to adopt end-to-end encryption, in which messages are shuffled so that only senders and recipients can read them. However, law enforcement has long pressured the company to gain access to that information. Apple said the latest changes will be introduced this year as part of its driver updates for the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch.

“Apple’s extended protections for children are a game changer,” said John Clark, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “Because there are so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have the potential to save children’s lives.”

But the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology called on Apple to abandon the changes, which it said in effect destroyed the company’s guarantee of end-to-end encryption. She added that scanning messages for sexually explicit content on phones or computers actually breaches security.

The group also questioned Apple’s technology to distinguish between dangerous content and something like art or a meme. Techniques like this are notorious for being error-prone.

Apple denies the changes are a backdoor to its encryption. It says that they are carefully considered innovations that do not disturb user privacy, but rather protect it strongly.

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