Then the myriad other tech companies that scan the images uploaded to their platforms will be alerted of supposed illicit images being uploaded. This isn't new. No one's lives have been ruined by this and it's been practice for years now.

>No one's lives have been ruined by this

This is a strong claim with zero evidence. The social costs of defending an accused perpetrator of this nature are insanely high.

While we're making unsubstantiated claims, I assert that intelligence agencies routinely exploit this. My only substantiation is that it's obvious and I would if I worked for them.

Ian Freemen is a controversial political activist whose pro-liberty, pro-bitcoin radio station was raided by the FBI in 2016 and had their equipment confiscated. It was widely covered in the news, he was kicked out of at least one community organization, and last I heard, they still didn't have all their equipment back.

No charges were ever filed, and the media outlets didn't bother to update their articles.

I think false accusations happen, especially to controversial figures, and assume most victims just don't want to call much attention to it.

Isn't this a separate issue to the one the grandparent was complaining about? I can't see anything about child porn related to this person, just a lot of talk about money laundering.

Also, are you sure there were no charges filed? Some cursory googling turns up articles including a PDF of the indictment [1] and more-recent articles seem to refer to an ongoing process [2].

[1]: https://manchesterinklink.com/fbi-descends-on-keene-and-surr...

[2]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/bitcoin-ian-freeman-...

We have literally no reason to think it's an issue. The burden of proof is on those who believe its a threat, not those who believe it isn't.

"Burden of proof"? Seems like it's pretty hard to prove what intelligence agencies are doing.

Also, there's the fun "you can't sue us because you have no standing/can't show harm, and showing harm to prove you have standing would be illegal".

> "Burden of proof"?

Yes, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

Why would they want to entrap people with fake child porn images? What would even be the point of getting people flagged? They would never be convicted anyway, since they are not actually storing illegal images.

It doesn't matter.

What matters is that the person is arrested, that their name is leaked to the mainstream news media, and that they're dragged through the mud - the same as seems to happen in literally every other child porn case.

The actual guilt or innocence doesn't matter at that point. Their lives have been sufficiently ruined, and, if they are actually innocent, the message has been clearly sent.

Do you have any examples of that happening, innocent people getting arrested for child porn? Never heard of it.

In any case, the police will not arrest anyone because they have only been flagged by the automatic system. As soon as Apple reviews the images that triggered the flagging, they will see that they aren't actually child porn, and hence they won't even contact the police.

I recently described an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29567729

Seems they went after him for other things

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2021/08/bitcoin-ian-free...

As I stated in a reply above, I guarantee that this database contains a number of non-real-CP images already that are just CG.

The same is true of the technology that can find photos of cats on your device. It can be abused, but smartphones and cloud services are packed with technology that could be abused by a motivated bad actor. If you're worried about it, you're better off not using a smartphone at all.