Late last week, it was revealed that American Apple customers would soon see the release of a new update for both iPhone and iPad products that would see the introduction of new scanning technology. One that would specifically look to locate people who had child abuse images stores on their smart devices. – While the principle of this did seem fairly sound (and definitely reasonable), as we correctly predicted at the time, there would be critics of this new update who would purely view this as a disguised means of Apple attempting to further spy on their userbase.
Well, in something that isn’t going to help that opinion much, following a Twitter post by @Snowden (Edward Snowdon – Yes, the former NSA leaker) it has been revealed that in an internal memo, Apple referred to such opponents as “the screeching voices of the minority.”
Apple Internal Memo Adds to Critics Fury!
The response has come after an open letter (apparently signed by thousands of notable industry security organisations and individuals) was sent to Apple urging them to not implement this image scanning tool in their upcoming iOS update. Specifically citing fears that it would potentially contain backdoors that could be exploited by government bodies, one of the more compelling arguments make within it raised the very valid point that ‘false positive’ could be raised by the scanning software that could have huge implications on those incorrectly accused.
Unbelievable: @Apple now circulating a propaganda letter describing the internet-wide opposition to their decision to start checking the private files on every iPhone against a secret government blacklist as “the screeching voices of the minority.”
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 6, 2021
This has become a scandal. https://t.co/uoa4uuNTaP
What Do We Think?
While Apple’s internal response is certainly poorly worded and will undoubtedly raise even more outrage among those who have cited criticism of this system, as you might expect, their official word on the subject still largely promotes the positive factor that it could help identify those who engage in ‘child abuse’ imagery.
“[Our aim is] to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)” – Apple
If you want to make your own mind up about this, however, you can check out the full version of the letter which was sent to Apple via the link here! – Rest assured though, this matter will be a hotly contested point for many months to come.
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
