Apple CSAM (withdrawn) — 60s explainer (C03)

01 / 08 · Setup

PROTECTING CHILDREN.

Apple · August 5, 2021

02 / 08 · Tension

ONLY ? WE SCAN EVERYTHING.

every photo before upload to iCloud

03 / 08 · Reveal

CSAM DETECTION

NeuralHash · local NCMEC hash database

04 / 08 · Mechanism

photo → NeuralHash on-device → match against database

iPhone

NeuralHash for every photo

on-device scanning

Apple → NCMEC → FBI

threshold 30 → report

"privacy-preserving" — according to Apple

05 / 08 · Scale

1 BILLION iPHONES. EVERY PHOTO.

Aug 2021 announcement Sep 2021 paused Dec 2022 withdrawn

90+

cryptographers opposed

EFF

open letter

Snowden

publicly critical

06 / 08 · Pushback

AUGUST 2021

EFF · ACLU

open letter

Matthew Green

Johns Hopkins

Erik Neuenschwander

insider · Congress

"all the arguments apply to governments too" — cryptographers

07 / 08 · Outcome

WITHDRAWN

December 2022 · instead: Advanced Data Protection

E2EE for iCloud — opt-in. CSAM plan not deployed. But: the precedent exists. And it could return.

08 / 08

CSAM DETECTION

Not deployed. But the plan existed. And it could return — for the children, terrorists, whatever they want.
Card C03 in Big Tech Files.