Clubul iPhone & iOS

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Apple to scan devices for illegal content | DW News

Apple intends to install software on American iPhones to scan for child abuse imagery, according to people briefed on its plans, raising alarm among security researchers who warn that it could open the door to surveillance of millions of people’s personal devices.

Apple detailed its proposed system — known as “neuralMatch” — to some US academics earlier this week, according to two security researchers briefed on the virtual meeting.

The automated system would proactively alert a team of human reviewers if it believes illegal imagery is detected, who would then contact law enforcement if the material can be verified. The scheme will initially roll out only in the US.

Apple confirmed its plans in a blog post, saying the scanning technology is part of a new suite of child protection systems that would “evolve and expand over time”. The features will be rolled out as part of iOS 15, expected to be released next month.

“This innovative new technology allows Apple to provide valuable and actionable information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and law enforcement regarding the proliferation of known CSAM [child sexual abuse material],” the company said.

“And it does so while providing significant privacy benefits over existing techniques since Apple only learns about users’ photos if they have a collection of known CSAM in their iCloud Photos account.”

The proposals are Apple’s attempt to find a compromise between its own promise to protect customers’ privacy and demands from governments, law enforcement agencies and child safety campaigners for more assistance in criminal investigations, including terrorism and child pornography.

The tension between tech companies such as Apple and Facebook, which have defended their increasing use of encryption in their products and services, and law enforcement has only intensified since the iPhone maker went to court with the FBI in 2016 over access to a terror suspect’s iPhone following a shooting in San Bernardino, California.

Security researchers, while supportive of efforts to combat child abuse, are concerned that Apple risks enabling governments around the world to seek access to their citizens’ personal data, potentially far beyond its original intent.

“It is an absolutely appalling idea, because it is going to lead to distributed bulk surveillance of . . . our phones and laptops,” said Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge.

Although the system is currently trained to spot child sex abuse, it could be adapted to scan for any other targeted imagery and text, for instance, terror beheadings or anti-government signs at protests, say researchers. Apple’s precedent could also increase pressure on other tech companies to use similar techniques.

“This will break the dam — governments will demand it from everyone,” said Matthew Green, a security professor at Johns Hopkins University, who is believed to be the first researcher to post a tweet about the issue.

Alec Muffett, a security researcher and privacy campaigner who formerly worked at Facebook and Deliveroo, said Apple’s move was “tectonic” and a “huge and regressive step for individual privacy”.

“Apple are walking back privacy to enable 1984,” he said.

Cloud-based photo storage systems and social networking sites already scan for child abuse imagery, but that process becomes more complex when trying to access data stored on a personal device.

Apple’s system is less invasive in that the screening is done on the phone, and “only if there is a match is notification sent back to those searching”, said Alan Woodward, a computer security professor at the University of Surrey. “This decentralised approach is about the best approach you could adopt if you do go down this route.”

Apple’s neuralMatch algorithm will continuously scan photos that are stored on a US user’s iPhone and have also been uploaded to its iCloud back-up system. Users’ photos, converted into a string of numbers through a process known as “hashing”, will be compared with those on a database of known images of child sexual abuse.

The system has been trained on 200,000 sex abuse images collected by the NCMEC.

According to people briefed on the plans, every photo uploaded to iCloud in the US will be given a “safety voucher” saying whether it is suspect or not. Once a certain number of photos are marked as suspect, Apple will enable all the suspect photos to be decrypted and, if apparently illegal, passed on to the relevant authorities.

Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

Apple plans to introduce a new feature that would scan messages sent to and by child users of iPhones to determine if the images contain nudity, the company announced on Thursday. The move is a major development in the ongoing debate around privacy and the inspection of communications.

Whereas previous features from other tech giants designed to detect child abuse images compare the cryptographic fingerprint of images to a list of known child abuse material, the new feature in the Messages app uses machine learning to determine whether a photo likely contains sexual material or not for all images. Some tech companies do aim to detect nudity in other forms of content. Facebook scans public posts for nudity, with varying degrees of success. Apple's planned feature concerns private messages sent between devices, and not publicly shared material.

"Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit. The feature is designed so that Apple does not get access to the messages," a technical document explaining Apple's new features reads. Apple said in the document that the new feature "will enable parents to play a more informed role in helping their children navigate communication online."

The document adds that this image scanning can be applied to images both received and sent by a child. After receiving a suspected sexually explicit image, the iPhone will blur the photo itself and the child will be warned that the image could be sensitive to view, according to screenshots included in the document. The system can also notify the child's parents if the child decides to view the image, as well as if the child tries to send sexually explicit images themselves, the document adds.

The document says this change is coming in an update later this year to accounts set up as families in iCloud for iOS15, iPad OS15, and macOS Monterey.

The move has concerned some security experts.

"Obviously the application presented is a good thing. But this is still an incredibly powerful technology demonstration, showing that even end to end encrypted photos can be subject to sophisticated scanning," Matthew Green, who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, told Motherboard in an online chat. "This scanning is benign, and when a picture is detected only the parent of the affected individual will be notified. But it shows that Apple is willing to build and deploy this technology. I hope that they will never be asked to use it for other purposes."

An oft-repeated concern from cryptographers and technologists is that tools developed for one purpose may be redeployed or tweaked for something else entirely. Although not directly comparable, in 2016 Reuters reported that Yahoo scanned incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials; tech giants have scanned content stored in cloud services for known child abuse material for years.

Worries about Apple's new features first rose on Wednesday when Green tweeted some details about another of Apple's plans that will compare the fingerprint of images to a list of already known child abuse material. The Financial Times then reported some specifics of the planned feature, but did not report on the Messages app scanning in detail.

Nicholas Weaver, senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, told Motherboard in an online chat that Apple's new Messages feature "seems like a VERY good idea."

"Overall Apple's approach seems well thought through to be effective while maximizing privacy," he added.

Apple did not respond to a specific set of questions about the Messages scanning feature.

Apple Introduces Parental Control Feature That Scans Messages for Nudity