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West Virginia says Apple ( AAPL ) prioritizing privacy over child

safety

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Apple ( AAPL ) shelved scanning plan on privacy concern, Reuters

reported

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Apple ( AAPL ) filed far fewer abuse reports than Google, Meta in

2023

(Adds statement from Apple ( AAPL ) in paragraphs 3 and 4)

By Nate Raymond and Stephen Nellis

Feb 19 (Reuters) - West Virginia's attorney general

filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing Apple ( AAPL ) of allowing

its iCloud service to become what the company's internal

communications described as the "greatest platform for

distributing child porn."

Attorney General JB McCuskey, a ​Republican, accused Apple ( AAPL ) of

prioritizing user privacy over child safety. His office called

the case the first ‌of its kind by a government agency over the

distribution of child sexual abuse material on Apple's ( AAPL ) data

storage platform.

"These images are a permanent record of a child's

trauma, and that child is revictimized every time ⁠the material

is shared or viewed," McCuskey said in the statement. "This

conduct is despicable, and Apple's ( AAPL ) inaction is inexcusable."

Apple ( AAPL ) in a statement said it has implemented ⁠features

that prevent children from uploading or receiving nude images

and was "innovating every day to combat ever-evolving threats

and maintain the ‌safest, most trusted platform for kids."

"All ‌of our industry-leading parental controls and

features, like Communication Safety - which automatically

intervenes on kids' devices when nudity is detected in Messages,

shared Photos, AirDrop and even live FaceTime calls - are

designed with the safety, security, ​and privacy of our users at

their core," Apple ( AAPL ) said.

The company has considered scanning ‌images but abandoned the

approach after concerns about user privacy and safety, including

worries that it could be exploited by governments looking for

other material for censorship or arrest, Reuters has reported.

McCuskey's office cited a text message Apple's ( AAPL ) then

anti-fraud chief sent in 2020 stating ​that because of Apple's ( AAPL )

priorities, it was "the greatest platform for distributing child

porn."

His office ​filed the lawsuit in ‌Mason County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit seeks statutory and punitive damages and asks to

have a judge force Apple ( AAPL ) to implement more effective measures to

detect abusive material and implement safer product designs.

Alphabet's Google, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and other

platform providers check uploaded photos or emailed attachments

against a database ⁠of identifiers of known child sex abuse

material provided by the National Center for Missing and

Exploited Children and other clearing houses.

Until 2022, Apple ( AAPL ) ⁠took a different approach. It did not scan

all files uploaded to its iCloud storage offerings, and the data

was not end-to-end encrypted, meaning law enforcement officials

could access it with a warrant.

Reuters in 2020 reported that Apple ( AAPL ) planned end-to-end

encryption for iCloud, which would have put data into a form

unusable by law enforcement officials. It abandoned the plan

after the FBI complained it would harm investigations.

In August 2021, Apple ( AAPL ) announced NeuralHash, which it

designed to balance the detection of child abuse material with

privacy ⁠by scanning images ‌on users' devices before upload.

The system was criticized by security researchers who

worried it could yield false reports ‌of abuse material and it

sparked a backlash from privacy advocates who claimed it could

be expanded to permit government surveillance.

A month later Apple ( AAPL ) delayed the introduction of ⁠NeuralHash

before canceling it in December 2022, the state said in its

statement. That same month, Apple ( AAPL ) launched an option for

end-to-end encryption for iCloud data.

The state said NeuralHash was inferior to other tools and

could be easily evaded. It said Apple ( AAPL ) stores and synchronizes

data through iCloud without proactive abuse material detection,

allowing such images to circulate.

While Apple ( AAPL ) did not go through with the effort to scan

images being uploaded to iCloud, it did implement a feature

called Communication Safety that blurs nudity and other

sensitive content being sent to or from a child's device.

Federal law requires U.S.-based technology companies to

report abuse material to the National Center for Missing and

Exploited Children. Apple ( AAPL ) in 2023 made 267 reports, compared to

1.47 million ​by Google and 30.6 million by Meta Platforms ( META )

, the state said.

The state's claims mirror allegations in a proposed class

action lawsuit filed against Apple ( AAPL ) in late 2024 in federal court

in California by individuals depicted in such images.

Apple ( AAPL ) has moved to dismiss that lawsuit, saying the firm is

shielded from liability under Section 230 ​of the Communications

Decency Act, a law that provides broad protections to ‌internet

companies from lawsuits over content generated by users.