{"id":633224,"date":"2021-08-11T11:51:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T15:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=633224"},"modified":"2021-08-11T11:51:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T15:51:29","slug":"china-could-abuse-apples-child-porn-detection-tool-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/china-could-abuse-apples-child-porn-detection-tool-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"China Could Abuse Apple\u2019s Child Porn Detection Tool, Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchina-could-abuse-apples-child-porn-detection-tool-experts-say%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=633224&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"29.152542372881\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/\">Latest News<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Authoritarian governments could use software to hunt political dissidents<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/s1.freebeacon.com\/up\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-736x491.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-scaled-e1628692780562.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1331332664-1400x934.jpg 1400w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\t(Photo by Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/santi-ruiz\/\" title=\"Posts by Santi Ruiz\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Santi Ruiz<\/a> \u2022 August 11, 2021 11:40 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"79.753814147018\">\n<p>Privacy advocates are warning that China and authoritarian governments could use Apple\u2019s child pornography detection tool to hunt down political dissidents.<\/p>\n<p>Apple announced last week it will begin scanning user photos stored on iCloud for material found in a database of &#8220;Child Sexual Abuse Material.&#8221; The company claims this system will protect user privacy by scanning phones directly, rather than moving data to hackable outside servers. But privacy advocates say foreign governments could hijack the tool to track down any material it finds objectionable.<\/p>\n<p>Once the detection tool takes effect, Apple will &#8220;be under huge pressure from governments to use this for purposes other than going after&#8221; child pornography, said the Lincoln Network\u2019s Zach Graves. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that hard to imagine Beijing saying, \u2018you&#8217;re going to use this for memes that criticize the government.\u2019&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Apple maintains a good relationship with China, a major consumer market that houses much of the company&#8217;s supply chain. The company has <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/critics-say-apple-keeps-its-app-store-closed-to-aid-chinese-censorship\/\">used<\/a> Chinese slave labor to produce its products and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/11\/29\/business\/economy\/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">lobbied<\/a> against legislation that would restrict imports that involve forced labor. Apple also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/05\/17\/technology\/apple-china-censorship-data.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stores<\/a> the personal data of Chinese users on state-owned computer servers.<\/p>\n<p>Tech companies such as Google already scan user content for child pornography. But Apple is the first to embed that function directly into users\u2019 devices. Apple\u2019s method relies on visual hashes, unique representations of photographs. The tool matches hashes on user photos against a&nbsp; database of Child Sexual Abuse Material compiled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other child safety organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Apple says it&#8217;s committed to limiting the tool to scan for child pornography and would refuse requests from governments to expand the scope of the tool. But nothing built into the tool prevents Apple from using other databases in the future. &#8220;Even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2021\/08\/apples-plan-think-different-about-encryption-opens-backdoor-your-private-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>&nbsp;India McKinney and Erica Portnoy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Western law enforcement have long <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/attorney-general-barr-signs-letter-facebook-us-uk-and-australian-leaders-regarding-use-end\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pushed<\/a> for similar access to other messaging systems like Facebook Messenger. While Apple has rejected those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/10\/12\/five-eyes-warn-tech-firms-that-encryption-creates-severe-risks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">requests<\/a> in the past, experts <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/matthew_d_green\/status\/1423071186616000513?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">worry<\/a> the new system raises the likelihood that governments will demand backdoor access to encrypted data.<\/p>\n<p>Other privacy advocates are raising concerns that Apple\u2019s detection tool could incorrectly flag certain pictures as inappropriate. The company says the odds of false-positive matches were around one in a trillion, but outside observers suggested that number was only possible in academic tests. Author and former Facebook employee Antonio Garc\u00eda Mart\u00ednez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepullrequest.com\/p\/hunting-predators\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pointed out<\/a> that Facebook, which uses similar technology, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/facebook-actually-sorry-for-banning-breastfeeding-pic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">banned<\/a> many pictures of nursing mothers.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Latest News Authoritarian governments could use software to hunt political dissidents  (Photo by Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)  Santi Ruiz \u2022 August 11, 2021 11:40 am &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}