Apple cannot be trusted with your data. Here’s why.

Apple has recently announced they will start analysing the pictures uploaded to iCloud in search of child abuse and pornography images, to report any violations to the authorities.

As anyone who wants to see the issue of child abuse being actively addressed, I find the intention laudable. But the actual implementation is just a huge pile of bull manure.

Here are some of the reasons why.

1. It violates your privacy

But Apple claims they will not look at your personal pictures, right?! Wrong.

Apple will be using a technique that basically creates a digital description of your picture (called a hash) and then checks this against a list of know hashes belonging to pictures of child abuse. It even accounts for basic changes to the original pictures, like cropping or changing the colour balance. In theory, this would mean that your pictures themselves are not analysed.

But.

The process is far from perfect. This means that a lot of your personal pictures may be tagged as being child abuse. The only way this can then be sorted out is by using human reviewers. As a consequence, Apple users will have their pictures being viewed by other humans, with all the opportunities for abuse that entails.