On August 5, local time, Apple announced a system that scans pictures of child sexual assault on iPhones in the United States, a move that has been supported by child protection organizations, but it has also triggered concerns among network security personnel that the system may be abused and used by the government to "spy on the people."
Snowden, who previously exposed the U.S. government's mass surveillance program, also tweeted that Apple would use the system to "bring mass surveillance to the world."
The Associated Press explained that Apple's system, called NeuralMatch, scans images before they are uploaded to iCloud, Apple's cloud storage service. If it finds a matching image, it notifies the auditor to check it. If child pornography is confirmed, Apple will close the account and notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Reuters: Apple will detect child abuse photos uploaded to iCloud
In fact, the system does not really "see" the image, but uses "digital fingerprints" technology to compare the content of the existing database of child sexual assault images by identifying key information in the picture.
John Clark, CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, championed Apple's system in a statement: "With so many people using Apple products, these new security measures have the potential to save children who have been lured online and prevent the spread of images of child sexual assault ... The truth is that privacy and child protection can coexist. ”
In fact, tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have been sharing digital fingerprints of known images of child sexual abuse for years. Previously, Apple has used similar technology to scan user files and photos stored in iCloud to prevent child pornography.
But compared to previous technologies, Apple plans to scan photos before they are uploaded, which also raises concerns about privacy and surveillance.
"It's definitely a terrible idea because it's going to lead to a lot of surveillance against our phones and laptops." Ross Anderson, a professor of safety engineering at the University of Cambridge, said so.
Matthew Green, a professor of cybersecurity at Johns Hopkins University, said: "This will push the boundaries, and the government will require everyone to do it." ”
Alec Muffett, a cybersecurity researcher who worked at Facebook, said Apple's move was a "huge step backwards in personal privacy." "Apple is setting privacy back, and 1984 [British novelist George Orwell's dystopian novel] has become possible," he said. ”
Green also mentioned another possibility that Apple's system could be "used to stigmatize innocent people," sending them seemingly innocuous pictures with the aim of triggering child pornography matches. This could fool Apple's algorithms and alert law enforcement. "Researchers have been able to do this easily." He said of the ability to deceive such systems.
Snowden, who previously exposed the "Prism" plan of mass surveillance in the United States, also spoke out on Twitter: "No matter how kind, Apple is using this to conduct mass surveillance of the world." There's no doubt about it: if they can scan child pornography today, they can scan anything tomorrow. ”
But Hany Farid, who invented photo-matching technology PhotoDNA more than a decade ago, argues that there is a potential for apple's system to be abused, but he says the need to combat child sexual abuse goes far beyond that possibility.
The scanning technology is said to be part of a new child protection system that will "evolve and expand over time." The features will be available as part of iOS 15 and are expected to be released next month.
The Financial Times reports that the system will "evolve and expand over time." The features will be rolled out as part of the operating system iOS 15, which is expected to be released next month.
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