The Cupertino-based company He mentioned that he will report to the authorities any photograph related to child sexual abuse. To do this, it will use a technology that will analyze the images of users in iCloud that are uploaded through their devices.
The measure will be carried out in order to capture criminals and stop the spread of images about sexual abuse to infants. For now, this measure will be subject only to devices in the United States.
Apple revealed that the iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 versions already feature new cryptographic technology that limits the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). However, it will reach all users with the next versions of their operating systems.
Apple will review the photos using a process known as “hashing,” which, according to the company, the images are converted into a set of numbers with a unique pattern that is compared to data for images related to child sexual abuse.
User privacy will be maintained
This does not mean that Apple employees will be viewing user photographs, but rather that their technology will make comparisons without human intervention. In case there is a match, then it will be time for an employee to intervene to analyze the image and avoid false positives before making the report to the authorities.
Apple assured that its technology will not use data or learn anything from the scanned images.
“Apple doesn’t learn anything about images that don’t match the known CSAM. Apple cannot access metadata for images that match CSMA until the image is verified to contain CSMA, ”the company said.
The company led by Tim Cook also assured that the risk of a false positive is very low.
“The accuracy of the matching system makes it very unlikely that images other than child sexual abuse will be revealed,” he clarified in a statement.
If the technology finds a match, a company employee reviews the photo. If it contains child sexual abuse content, the iCloud account of the user in question will be blocked and the authorities will be notified immediately, who will be in charge of carrying out an investigation and determining the condition of the person involved.