How is that a meaningful difference for the stated end goals, that can explain the lack of precedent.
In this specific case yes. That is what is supposed to happen.
But Apple also sets the standard that this is just the beginning, not the end. They say as much on page 3 in bold, differentiated color ink
https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
And there’s nothing to stop them from scanning all images on a device. Or scanning all content for keywords or whatever. iCloud being used as a qualifier is a red herring to what this change is capable of.
Maybe someone shooting guns is now unacceptable, kids have been kicked from schools for posting them on Facebook or having them in their rooms on zoom. What if it’s kids shooting guns? There are so many possibilities of how this could be misused, abused or even just an oopsie, sorry I upended your life to solve a problem that is so very rare.
Add to that their messaging has been muddy at best. And it incited a flame war. A big part of that is iCloud is not a single thing. It’s a service, it can sync snd hold iMessages, it can sync backups, or in my case We have shared iCloud albums that we use to share images with family. Others are free to upload and share. In fact that’s our only use of iCloud other than find my. They say iCloud photos as if that’s just a single thing but it’s easy to extrapolate that to images in iMessages, backups etc.
And the non profit that hosts this database is not publicly accountable. They have public employees on their payroll but really they can put whatever they want in that database. They have no accountability or public disclosure requirements.
So even I, when their main page was like 3 articles was a bit perturbed and put off. I’m not going to ditch my iPhone, mainly because it’s work assigned but I have been keeping a keen eye on what’s happening, how it’s happening and will keep an eye out for their chnages they are promising. I’m also going to guess they won’t nearly be as high profile in the future.
All images on your device have been scanned for years by ML models to detect things all sorts of things and make your photo library searchable regardless of whether you use an Android or Apple device. That's how you can go and search "dog", "revolver", "wife", etc and get relevant photos popping up.
Ex. This article from 2013 where they talk about searching for [my photos of flowers] https://search.googleblog.com/2013/05/finding-your-photos-mo...
I'm an iOS guy, and don't have an Android device to confirm it. I've got a few photos visible on photos.google.com and they're able to detect "beard", at least. Which, to be fair, it's just a few selfies.
iOS does this pretty well. I searched my phone and it was able to recognize and classify a gun as a revolver from a meme I'd saved years ago. That's not this CSAM technology, just something they've been doing for years with ML.
And the only reason I know about them is because my wife asked about them and why our iPhones dont do them.
But we don't put stuff on Facebook. Our photos are backed up to our NAS. Phones backup to a macmini only. Siri and search are basically disabled as much as possible (we have to somewhat enable it for carplay) but definitely no voice or anything.
Effectively the same for Apple. It’s only when uploading the photo. Doing it on device means the server side gets less information.
>their services
>T H E I R S E R V I C E S
Because it's on their SERVICES, not on their user's DEVICES, for one.
Also, regardless of swatting, that's why we have an issue with Apple.