No one here has a problem with the worst criminals being taken out. The problem is the scope creep that always comes after.

In 2021 and 2020 we saw people being arrested for planning/promoting anti lockdown protests. Not for actually participating but for simply posting about it. The scope of what "harmful content" is is infinite. You might agree that police do need to take action against these people but surely you can see how the scope creeped from literal terrorists and pedophiles to edgy facebook mums and how that could move even further to simple criticisms of the government or religion.

It's difficult to say how we draw the line to make sure horrible crimes go punished while still protecting reasonable privacy and freedom. I'm guessing apples justification here is that they are not sending your photos to police but simply checking them against known bad hashes and if you are not a pedophile, there will be no matches and none of your data will have been exposed.

We also saw the police query "check-in" databases which were pitched to the public as "for contact-tracing purposes only". Scope creep is inevitable.

Source? Most of these systems didn't disclose location.

In Germany police went around and even looked at contact tracing lists (on paper) in restaurants [1]. Even while politicians still stated publicly that these lists were only used (or to be used) for contact tracing.

[1]: https://www.golem.de/news/hamburg-polizei-nutzt-corona-konta...

Also the partly state sponsored luca app (check in in locations, festivals, restaurants, concerts) that is privately developed (and riddled with security holes) is already in discussion to use the data on the people to better target them for concert tickets and the like [2].

[2]: https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bund...

So we see this data is already in abuse by the state and also by state sponsored private entities.

I believe, that this data, once collected, will only be (ab)used further in the future. In my experience it will be as with all data caches - somebody wants to create additional value from it.

Singapore:

https://fortune.com/2021/02/01/singapore-covid-data-tracetog...

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/police-can-a...

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/proposed-restrictions...

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/bill-limitin...

(Note that one mostly-united political party controls 89.2% of Singapore's legislature seats, and can pass any laws or amend its constitution to their liking.)

Do you have sources for this ?

Australia, WA, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/safewa-app-sparks-urg...

Australia, WA, border pass data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/g2g-app-data-accessed...

Australia, VIC, check-in data: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/police-sought-ac...

Australia, QLD, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronaviru...

See my answer to your sister comment from @optimiz3

In Germany police requested contact tracing lists from restaurants in investigations.

Thank you, it clearly shows that the German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

And the underlying desire for having this information will no doubt prolong the Corona restrictions longer than necessary, which is certainly not in the interest of German citizens.

> German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing

Oh dear, one thing we could definitely state that German government is absolutely could be trusted to do the right thing

We also saw HN shadow banning entire IP CIDR blocks because they didn’t like argument against fleeting CDC guidance that was put forth or the Chinese lab origin theory in 2020. You can’t register from these CIDR blocks. If you had an account before the comments would just end up in a black hole. Dang can explain.

That is false. So was your other false claim that I replied to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28093879).

Please stop creating accounts to break HN's rules with.

Any proofs will be great here.

@dang why?

@dang is that true? :O

Who will be accountable for the creeps at apple? Or their overlords in the government?