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That’s what Federighi says in this interview. It’s only scanning photos that are about to be uploaded to iCloud. Otherwise photos aren’t scanned. Disable iCloud

That’s what Federighi says in this interview. It’s only scanning photos that are about to be uploaded to iCloud. Otherwise photos aren’t scanned. Disable iCloud and there’s no scanning. Still, I think Apple misjudged the whole cloud vs. device thing in this case. They’ve historically preached a lot about how everything should happen on the users device, not the cloud. I think that got myopic for them, and led them to this decision. But in this case I think users would be much happier if Apple had just said “under pressure from law enforcement we are now scanning photos when they arrive at the iCloud data centers. If you don’t want scanning don’t use iCloud.” Because it’s not so much the scanning of uploaded photos that has people upset, it’s the fact that the scanning and phoning home is baked into the device itself.

Johnny555 5y ago
Disable iCloud and there’s no scanning. Many people (like myself) are worried about the slippery slope where this is turned on for all photos, since why not? Not all abusers will upload their CSAM content to the cloud, why wouldn't Apple flip a flag in the future to scan everything, including photos and downloaded content? If they are serious about fighting CSAM and have this great privacy preserving platform, I don't see why they wouldn't do this?
- notJim 5y ago
  It’s not a flag, the feature is part of the iCloud upload process. No upload, no scan. Of course a code change could do anything. The point of the feature is to prevent people from using iCloud to distribute CSAM. If you’re recording it with your phone, it’s no different than using an slr camera. The cloud part is what they’re worried about.
  - yati 5y ago
    Why flag the account and report it if the only goal is to politely prevent people from uploading? Like you say, a “code change can do anything” and we simply don’t know how the current feature is done or how it will evolve. edit: like many comments here already say, reporting doesn’t sound terrible for CSAM, but nothing about the feature guarantees it wont be extended to other kind of content.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    > The point of the feature is to prevent people from using iCloud to distribute CSAM. Right, which is why it's so utterly baffling that they don't do this scanning server-side instead of client-side.
notJim 5y ago
Completely agree with this. But apples perspective is that on-device scanning prevents them from looking at your photos in the cloud at all. This is actually more secure than other cloud providers that do all kinds of shit with your photos.
- laurent92 5y ago
  But if they find a few which have a high correlation, they will eagerly upload them to Apple’s police service and have them viewed by the entire floor. Also, the matches are supposedly only to actual babyporn pictures. We have 0% way to verify that, as even employees of NEMSEC are not all allowed to view them. Such DBs are often full of unreviewed fluff, and why not unrelated photos entirely, cookware, computer cases, who knows, as long as “some degree of matching” with your photos allows Apple to send a .zip to the police.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > But apples perspective is that on-device scanning prevents them from looking at your photos in the cloud at all. In terms of the privacy intrusion, what difference does it make whether the images are scanned on your device or on their servers? They're getting scanned just the same either way. But if they did it on their servers, it would provide a technical impediment to expanding beyond the use of iCloud, and remove the need to trust Apple as much. That seems like it would be much better for users while still allowing the functionality they claim to be seeking.
mixmastamyk 5y ago
If you run Little Snitch you'll find there is no such thing as "disabling" icloud. Mac OS still talks to it frequently, unless you run LS.
vetinari 5y ago
> That’s what Federighi says in this interview. It’s only scanning photos that are about to be uploaded to iCloud. Otherwise photos aren’t scanned. Disable iCloud and there’s no scanning. That's for now. The first update can change that and you will have no recourse.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  Updates could always have changed that, on any closed-source system.

Johnny555 5y ago

Disable iCloud and there’s no scanning. Many people (like myself) are worried about the slippery slope where this is turned on for all photos, since why not? Not all abusers will upload their CSAM content to the cloud, why wouldn't Apple flip a flag in the future to scan everything, including photos and downloaded content? If they are serious about fighting CSAM and have this great privacy preserving platform, I don't see why they wouldn't do this?

notJim 5y ago
It’s not a flag, the feature is part of the iCloud upload process. No upload, no scan. Of course a code change could do anything. The point of the feature is to prevent people from using iCloud to distribute CSAM. If you’re recording it with your phone, it’s no different than using an slr camera. The cloud part is what they’re worried about.
- yati 5y ago
  Why flag the account and report it if the only goal is to politely prevent people from uploading? Like you say, a “code change can do anything” and we simply don’t know how the current feature is done or how it will evolve. edit: like many comments here already say, reporting doesn’t sound terrible for CSAM, but nothing about the feature guarantees it wont be extended to other kind of content.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > The point of the feature is to prevent people from using iCloud to distribute CSAM. Right, which is why it's so utterly baffling that they don't do this scanning server-side instead of client-side.

notJim 5y ago

Completely agree with this. But apples perspective is that on-device scanning prevents them from looking at your photos in the cloud at all. This is actually more secure than other cloud providers that do all kinds of shit with your photos.

laurent92 5y ago
But if they find a few which have a high correlation, they will eagerly upload them to Apple’s police service and have them viewed by the entire floor. Also, the matches are supposedly only to actual babyporn pictures. We have 0% way to verify that, as even employees of NEMSEC are not all allowed to view them. Such DBs are often full of unreviewed fluff, and why not unrelated photos entirely, cookware, computer cases, who knows, as long as “some degree of matching” with your photos allows Apple to send a .zip to the police.
JohnFen 5y ago
> But apples perspective is that on-device scanning prevents them from looking at your photos in the cloud at all. In terms of the privacy intrusion, what difference does it make whether the images are scanned on your device or on their servers? They're getting scanned just the same either way. But if they did it on their servers, it would provide a technical impediment to expanding beyond the use of iCloud, and remove the need to trust Apple as much. That seems like it would be much better for users while still allowing the functionality they claim to be seeking.

mixmastamyk 5y ago

If you run Little Snitch you'll find there is no such thing as "disabling" icloud. Mac OS still talks to it frequently, unless you run LS.

vetinari 5y ago

> That’s what Federighi says in this interview. It’s only scanning photos that are about to be uploaded to iCloud. Otherwise photos aren’t scanned. Disable iCloud and there’s no scanning. That's for now. The first update can change that and you will have no recourse.

benhurmarcel 5y ago
Updates could always have changed that, on any closed-source system.