Apple ’s iPhone: Now With Built‐​In Surveillance

Julian SanchezIn recent years, Apple has sought to brand itself as a strong defender of user privacy, boasting that they don ’t need to monetize your personal data—since their business model is based on selling pricy hardware—and admirablyfighting off government pressure to weaken or break strong encryption on its devices. That ’s why it’s so alarming to see the Cupertino‐​based tech giant has decided that a shockingly misguided surveillance apparatus will soon be built right into the company ’s widely‐​used operating systems.Apple this weekannounced two major updates coming soon to its iOS, iPadOS, and macOS operating systems. Both have an unimpeachably laudable goal: fighting the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and victimization of children by online predators. But at least one of the two represents an extraordinarily dangerous idea that will be a dream ‐​come‐​true for repressive regimes: That personal computing devices should be designed to spy on their users’ activity—and report it to the authorities.Since I ’ve seen the two very different systems Apple announced conflated in some of the public reactions, it’s worth distinguishing them briefly.First, Apple announced an optional parental ‐​control feature for its Messages app. When activated, the app will scan messages sent on the device using machine learning algorithms to detect what it believes may be nude images. The child will see a notice that ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs