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Tech Experts Raise Concern Over Apple's New Child Safety Tool

CIO Insider Team | Monday, 9 August, 2021
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Apple’s latest child safety tool receives a lot of concerns from tech executives, privacy advocates, and experts. As the tool uses an in-built software that scans photographs uploaded to iCloud and its messaging platform and compares them to a database that consists of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Apple claims that the tool allows it to keep user data encrypted and do analysis on-device while also reporting users to authorities if they are found to be spreading child abuse material.

However, experts warn that the tool could possibly crack open a loophole in Apple’s software which can be misused by cybercriminals in the future. This loophole is referred to as Backdoor, which is a chunk of code that allows unauthorized entry to consumer units and can be used for illegal surveillance.

In fact, a slew of voices raised concerns over Apple's new Child Safety tool through an open letter with over 4,000 signatures circulated online. The Apple Privacy Letter urged the iPhone maker to ‘reconsider its technological rollout’ in order to avoid undoing decades of work by technologists, researchers, and policy activists on privacy protections.

Edward Snowden, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), professors, and others are among those who have expressed concerns over Apple's new tool.

Apple was also chastised by Edward Snowden as a result of the shift and Snowden was one among the signers to Apple’s open letter demanding that the update be withdrawn

To say that Apple's ambitions have disappointed us is an understatement. Apple has long been a supporter of end-to-end encryption for the same reasons that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been time and time again”, says EFF, the digital rights group.

End-to-end encryption may ease the US and foreign government agencies, but it's a rough ride for users who rely on the company's privacy and security leadership.

WhatsApp’s executive Will Cathcart in a thread of tweets tweeted that his company would not be adopting the safety measures, and calling Apple's tool as ‘very concerning’. Cathcart says WhatsApp's system to combat child exploitation, which partly relies on user reports, preserves encryption like Apple's, and has resulted in reporting over 400,000 cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the company has reported over 400,000 cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Apple was also chastised by Edward Snowden as a result of the shift and Snowden was one among the signers to Apple’s open letter demanding that the update be withdrawn.

Apple later sent out an internal memo warning staff that the update will be met with opposition. This memo is referred to as ‘minority scream’, and Apple is currently circulating a propaganda letter outlining the widespread Internet resistance to their decision to begin matching all iPhone private files with the government's secret blacklist.

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