Apple will introduce a cryptographic technology with iOS and iPadOS to limit the distribution of child sexual abuse material on services such as iCloud, and will use machine learning on the device to warn of explicit sexual content in its Messages app.
The technology company spoke about the novelties in child protection, new tools designed with experts that seek to protect children from predators who use digital services to reach them.
One of the main concerns in this area is the sending of child sexual abuse material. Apple announced “new cryptographic applications” in the next versions of iOS and iPadOS that will allow detecting images of this type that are stored in iCloud.
The company explains that this method does not scan the images in the cloud, but is based on an on-device comparison of known images provided by child safety organizations before they are uploaded to iCloud.
What is being compared is not the image itself, but the “hashes” of the images, a kind of fingerprint. A cryptographic technology called ‘private set intersection’ is what determines if there is a match without revealing the result, and is attached to the image once uploaded to iCloud.
The ‘secret exchange threshold’ technology ensures a high level of matching, and that is when Apple receives an alert, for human teams to review. If confirmed, the user’s account is deactivated and a report is sent to the relevant associations and the Police.
K. Tovar
Source: dpa
