Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Should also be noted the second system sends no images to Apple or is reviewed by Apple employees in any way. You are directly contradicting Apple's public statement: > Apple manually reviews all reports ( https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni... ) Moreover, it was found that in US v. Ackerman that the NCMEC's inspection of a user's private email was an unlawful violation of their fourth amen…
I was referring the second system mentioned by the parent. NOT the CSAM system. Conflating these systems has been huge issue with the random articles coming out. They are distinct. From the GP > The second, independent, system, is a machine learning model which runs on-device to detect sexually explicit photos being received on Messages.app. This system is designed to be run on children’s phones. The system will hide…
I don't think I agree on the "sort of"--
It is unambitious the effective law in the US, established in court, that if the tech company scanning is a product of government coercion than the scanning cannot be performed without a warrant.
In Ackerman Google went out of their way to testify that they were not being coerced by the government, but were scanning out of their own commercial interest (to avoid a public loss of reputation for hosting child porn on their systems).
If Apple wants to defend their failure to act in their user's best interest, they need to do so directly by calling out the governments coercion. Or otherwise, they ought to admit (as google did) that no meaningful government coercion exists and that their actions at the users expense are driven by their commercial interests.
There are two central possibilities: That the searching is coerced, in which case it is an unlawful violation of the user's fourth amendment rights, or that it is not coerced, in which case it is an activity that Apple is freely engaging with for the benefit of their commercial interests.
In either case-- facilitating an unlawful invasion of user's constitutional rights on behalf of the government, or voluntarily invading the privacy of their users for commercial benefit Apple is ethically in the wrong.
I don't doubt that this dichotomy, if widely recognized, would put apple in a difficult position-- but that's a cost of doing business.