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An international coalition of more than 90 policy and rights groups published an open letter on Thursday urging Apple to abandon its plans to “build surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads, and other products” – a reference to the company’s intention to scan users’ iCloud photo libraries for images of child sex abuse (via Reuters).
“Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children,” the groups wrote in the letter.
Some signatories of the letter, organized by the U.S.-based nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), are concerned that Apple’s on-device CSAM scanning system could be subverted in nations with different legal systems to search for political or other sensitive content.
“Once this backdoor feature is built in, governments could compel Apple to extend notification to other accounts, and to detect images that are objectionable for reasons other than being sexually explicit,” reads the letter.
The letter also calls on Apple to abandon planned changes to iMessage in family accounts, which would try to identify and blur nudity in children’s messages, letting them view it only if parents are notified. The signatories claim that not only could the step endanger children in intolerant homes or those seeking educational material, it would also break end-to-end encryption for iMessage.
Some signatories come from countries in which there are already heated legal battles over digital encryption and privacy rights, such as Brazil, where WhatsApp has been repeatedly blocked for failing to decrypt messages in criminal probes. Other signers ar
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Read the original article: Global Coalition of Policy Groups Urges Apple to Abandon ‘Plan to Build Surveillance Capabilities into iPhones’