Critics warn Apple’s plan to scan iPhones for images of child sexual abuse could be misused

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Apple has unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, sparking applause from child welfare groups, but sparking concern from some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments seeking to monitor their citizens.

Apple AAPL, + 0.07%, said its messaging app would use machine learning on the device to notify sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls neuralMatch will detect known images of child sexual abuse without deciphering people’s messages. If it finds a match, the image will be examined by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.

But researchers say the tool could be used for other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.

Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins, one of the top crypto researchers, feared that it could be used to trick innocent people into sending them harmless but malicious images designed to appear as child pornography matches, deceiving the Apple’s algorithm and alerting law enforcement basically supervising people. The researchers were able to do this quite easily, he said.

Tech companies such as Microsoft MSFT, + 1.05%, Alphabets GOOGL, + 0.83% GOOG, + 0.67% Google, Facebook FB, + 1.13% and others have been sharing lists of hash of known images of child sexual abuse. Apple also scanned user files stored in its iCloud service, which is not as encrypted as its messages, for such images.

Some say this technology could make the company vulnerable to political pressure in authoritarian states like China. What happens when the Chinese government says: Here is a list of files we want you to scan, Green said. Apple says no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.

The company has come under pressure from governments and law enforcement to allow monitoring of encrypted data. Putting the security measures in place has forced Apple to strike a delicate balance between cracking down on child exploitation while keeping its leading commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.

Apple believes it achieved this feat with technology it developed in consultation with several prominent cryptographers, including Stanford University professor Dan Boneh, whose work in the field won a Turing Award, often referred to as the tech version of the Nobel prize.

The computer scientist who invented PhotoDNA, the technology used by law enforcement agencies to identify online child pornography over a decade ago, recognized the potential for abuse of the Apples system, but said he was far outweighed by the imperative to tackle child sexual abuse.

It’s possible ? Sure. But is this something that worries me? No, said Hany Farid, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, who maintains that many other programs designed to protect devices against various threats have not seen this type of mission creep in. For example, WhatsApp provides users with end-to-end encryption to protect their privacy, but uses a system to detect malware and warn users not to click on harmful links.

Apple was one of the first major companies to embrace end-to-end encryption, in which messages are scrambled so that only their senders and recipients can read them. However, law enforcement has long pressured for access to this information in order to investigate crimes such as terrorism or the sexual exploitation of children.

The extended protection of apples for children is a game-changer, John Clark, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in a statement. With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children who are lured online and whose gruesome images circulate in child sexual abuse material.

Julia Cordua, CEO of Thorn, said Apple technology balances children’s need for privacy and digital security. Thorn, a non-profit organization founded by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, uses technology to help protect children from sexual abuse by identifying victims and working with technology platforms.

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