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It is interesting to me that CSAM is used as justification for such heavy-handed consequences and widespread surveillance. People use the internet to do all kin

It is interesting to me that CSAM is used as justification for such heavy-handed consequences and widespread surveillance. People use the internet to do all kinds of awful things, plenty of them crimes, plenty of those crimes being violent or personal property crimes. Murder, robbery, burglary, etc. Obviously CSAM is vile and not something your average citizen condones. But so are those other crimes. I suppose children "pull on the heartstrings" more than your average victim, but children are also the victims of those other crimes. Why haven't we started surveilling personal messages to detect criminal planning in advance? Because more people understand the nasty implications of the government reading your messages, but few understand the implications of machine learning "detecting" CSAM in your Google Drive or Photos?

vineyardmike 4y ago
Your broader point stands, but in the US at least “pre crime” monitoring or police intervention is a massive can of illegal worms. The planning of a crime can be illegal itself, eg “conspiracy to commit murder” is illegal, but generally it’s fraught with existing legal minefields.
matthewdgreen 4y ago
In the UK they also search for “terrorism related content” and other types of criminal media. While this isn’t required in the US (and neither is CSAM scanning) part of the impetus for building these systems is to satisfy non-US governments that don’t have the same constitutional protections that the US does. US law enforcement officials routinely join with their non-US counterparts in urging/pressuring US firms to implement these systems, knowing that once they’re built (non-voluntarily) for non-US compliance they will likely be turned on (“voluntarily”) for US customers as well. See e.g. this open letter to Facebook authored by US AG Barr and counterparts from the UK and Australia. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-barr-signs-letter-facebook-us-uk-and-australian-leaders-regarding-use-end https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-barr-signs-l...

vineyardmike 4y ago

Your broader point stands, but in the US at least “pre crime” monitoring or police intervention is a massive can of illegal worms. The planning of a crime can be illegal itself, eg “conspiracy to commit murder” is illegal, but generally it’s fraught with existing legal minefields.

matthewdgreen 4y ago

In the UK they also search for “terrorism related content” and other types of criminal media. While this isn’t required in the US (and neither is CSAM scanning) part of the impetus for building these systems is to satisfy non-US governments that don’t have the same constitutional protections that the US does. US law enforcement officials routinely join with their non-US counterparts in urging/pressuring US firms to implement these systems, knowing that once they’re built (non-voluntarily) for non-US compliance they will likely be turned on (“voluntarily”) for US customers as well. See e.g. this open letter to Facebook authored by US AG Barr and counterparts from the UK and Australia. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-barr-signs-letter-facebook-us-uk-and-australian-leaders-regarding-use-end https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-barr-signs-l...