> Apple’s neuralMatch algorithm will continuously scan photos that are stored on a US user’s iPhone and have also been uploaded to its iCloud back-up system. Us

> Apple’s neuralMatch algorithm will continuously scan photos that are stored on a US user’s iPhone and have also been uploaded to its iCloud back-up system. Users’ photos, converted into a string of numbers through a process known as “hashing”, will be compared with those on a database of known images of child sexual abuse. It's weird and invasive that they'd search users devices, but this makes it sound like they're just searching for files with certain hashes, which (to me) is fairly uninteresting. What I don't understand is why this is called "neuralMatch". Is it some sort of perceptual hashing (versus cryptographic hashing)? What exactly makes it "neural"? If neuralMatch is to Google's reverse image search as Apple Maps was to Google Maps when it launched, this is going to have so many false positives. > According to people briefed on the plans, every photo uploaded to iCloud in the US will be given a “safety voucher” saying whether it is suspect or not. Once a certain number of photos are marked as suspect, Apple will enable all the suspect photos to be decrypted and, if apparently illegal, passed on to the relevant authorities Is this separate? Or is the article just confusing iCloud storage for on-device storage? Regardless, there's some very lazy journalism going on here.