• Tech Services & Software Cybersecurity Apple Sued Over Allegations of CSAM on iCloud West Virginia’s attorney general alleges that iCloud’s end-to-end encryption is being used to store and distribute child sexual abuse material. • I’ve been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET’s West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team. • Apple is facing alawsuit(PDF) filed Thursday by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey overallegations that iCloudis being used to store and distribute child sexual abuse material online. • McCuskey alleges that Apple knew about this “for years” and “chose to do nothing about it.” The lawsuit contains alleged iMessage screenshots between Apple executives Eric Friedman and Herve Sibert acknowledging the storage and distribution of CSAM on iCloud back in February 2020. • “In an iMessage conversation about whether Apple might be putting too much emphasis on privacy and not enough on trust and child safety, Friedman boasted that iCloud is ’the greatest platform for distributing child porn’ and that Apple has ‘chosen to not know in enough places where we really cannot say,’” the lawsuit alleges. • “In the same conversation,” it continues, “Friedman referred to a New York Times article about CSAM detection and revealed that he suspects Apple is underreporting the size of the CSAM issue it has on its products.” The lawsuit points to the number of reports of detected CSAM made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023 by Apple (267), compared to Google (1.47 million) and Meta (30.6 million).

Article Summaries:

  • Apple has been sued by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, who alleges that iCloud has long stored and distributed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and that Apple “knew about this for years and chose to do nothing.” The suit cites alleged iMessage exchanges between Apple executives in 2020, claiming the company boasted that iCloud was a prime platform for CSAM and that it under‑reported the problem. It also accuses Apple of abandoning a 2021 CSAM‑scanning initiative and of using end‑to‑end encryption as a barrier to law‑enforcement. Apple responded that privacy and safety guide its decisions, highlighting parental‑control features and ongoing CSAM‑detection work.

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