So far the courts have determined that since providers invade their customer privacy of their own free will with no incentive or coersion by any government agency, that it is not a search by the goverment.

It's just your friendly trillion dollar tech company putting on a mask and cape and engaging in a bit of vigilante fun. You know? Like batman! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr7AONv3FSg )

Nope. It’s not controlled by the government, and it’s not warrantless, since it is opt-in.

Since the govt. supplies the hashes in an unauditable way, it absolutely is controlled by the government. What's to stop them from using hashes of non CSAM material?

The government doesn’t supply the hashes in an unauditable way, that is a totally false statement.

The hashes are supplied by NCMEC, a non-profit which is auditable, not a secret government agency.

In any case, even if a non-CSAM hash were somehow in the database, Apple reviews the images before making reports, and those reports are used in normal criminal prosecutions.

Courts have determined that for this purpose the NCMEC is an agent of the government. NEMEC is 99% funded by the government and its ability to handle child porn is directly deprived from a explicit legislative carveout for them by name. What they do would be a felony for you or I to do. The fact that they are technically non-profit rather than an agency makes them significantly less accountable to the public. We cannot FOIA their communications, their composition isn't subject to public review, we cannot vote them out. And we have no way to tell what their database contains, nor is there any avenue for redress should we somehow learn of an inappropriate listing.

To the extent that you can say that they're not exactly a government agency, they absolutely have been deputized by the government.

> And we have no way to tell what their database contains, nor is there any avenue for redress should we somehow learn of an inappropriate listing.

Yes there is. It’s called legal liability. They are not immune to being held accountable for their actions just like any other non-profit. They may be immune from prosecution for possessing CSAM, but they don’t have any kind of immunity for damages they cause through their own actions.

So you would agree that Apple's use of private set intersection serves the purpose of shielding themselves and their data sources for the purposes of mitigating their legal liability from the harms created by false listings by concealing the content of the databases?

The database of hashes is controlled by the government. They can put whatever they want in there.

False. See my other reply.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28303966

I don't think it's entirely false. NCMEC is not a regular non-profit. They have special clearance to do things that regular citizens and non-profits are not allowed to do.

A government-funded “NGO” with special legal powers is the government.