West Virginia accuses Apple of allowing iCloud to become ‘greatest platform for distributing child porn'

Core Viewpoint - West Virginia's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that its iCloud service has become a major platform for distributing child pornography, prioritizing user privacy over child safety [1][5][12] Group 1: Lawsuit Details - The lawsuit is described as the first of its kind by a government agency regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse material on Apple's platform [1][12] - The lawsuit seeks statutory and punitive damages and requests a judge to compel Apple to implement more effective measures for detecting abusive material and to design safer products [5][10] Group 2: Apple's Response and Features - Apple claims to have implemented features to prevent children from uploading or receiving nude images, emphasizing its commitment to user safety and privacy [4][13] - The company has developed a feature called Communication Safety, which blurs nudity and sensitive content on children's devices [13] Group 3: Historical Context and Comparisons - Until 2022, Apple did not scan all files uploaded to iCloud, and its data was not end-to-end encrypted, allowing law enforcement access with a warrant [6][16] - In comparison, other tech companies like Google and Microsoft actively check uploaded content against databases of known child sexual abuse material [6] - In 2023, Apple made 267 reports of abuse material, significantly lower than Google's 1.47 million and Meta Platforms' 30.6 million [14]