Apple Sued by West Virginia for Allegedly Allowing CSAM Distribution Through iCloud

[MacRumors]

West Virginia's Attorney General JB McCuskey today announced a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of knowingly allowing iCloud to be used to distribute and store child sexual abuse material (CSAM). McCuskey says that Apple has opted to "do nothing about it" for years.

"Preserving the privacy of child predators is absolutely inexcusable. And more importantly, it violates West Virginia law. Since Apple has so far refused to police themselves and do the morally right thing, I am filing this lawsuit to demand Apple follow the law, report these images, and stop re-victimizing children by allowing these images to be stored and shared," Attorney General JB McCuskey said.

According to the lawsuit [PDF], Apple has described itself as the "greatest platform for distributing child porn" internally, but it submits far fewer reports about CSAM than peers like Google and Meta.

Back in 2021, Apple announced new child safety features, including a system that would detect known CSAM in images stored in iCloud Photos. After backlash from customers, digital rights groups, child safety advocates, and security researchers, Apple decided to abandon its plans for CSAM detection in iCloud Photos.

"Children can be protected without companies combing through personal data, and we will continue working with governments, child advocates, and other companies to help protect young people, preserve their right to privacy, and make the internet a safer place for children and for us all," Apple said when announcing that it would not implement the feature.

Apple later explained that creating a tool for scanning private iCloud data would "create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit."

West Virginia's Attorney General says that Apple has shirked its responsibility to protect children under the guise of user privacy, and that Apple's decision not to deploy detection technology is a choice, not passive oversight. The lawsuit suggests that since Apple has end-to-end control over hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure, it is not able to claim to be an "unknowing, passive conduit of CSAM."

The lawsuit is seeking punitive damages and injunctive relief requiring Apple to implement effective CSAM detection measures.

Apple was also sued in 2024 over its decision to abandon CSAM detection. A lawsuit representing a potential group of 2,680 victims said that Apple's failure to implement CSAM monitoring tools has caused ongoing harm to victims. That lawsuit is seeking $1.2 billion.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Sued by West Virginia for Allegedly Allowing CSAM Distribution Through iCloud

 

[HouseLannister]

Section 230. Kick rocks!

 

[neuropsychguy]

Sued if you do, sued if you don't.

 

[Martin Bland]

Federal law is crystal clear on this matter. In particular, in the section reporting requirements of providers, paragraph F states:

(f) Protection of Privacy.-Nothing in this section shall be construed to require a provider to-
(1) monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider;
(2) monitor the content of any communication of any person described in paragraph (1); or
(3) affirmatively search, screen, or scan for facts or circumstances described in sections (a) and (b).

WV has nothing to stand on, and the AG knows it.

 

[WilliApple]

Thought we would be over this already... I will stop using iCloud alltogether if they add CSAM detection and use my Mac mini as a server.

And I will open source the app I make for it.

 

[I7guy]

I’m all for protecting those who cannot protect themselves, but good luck WV.

 

[mikebenton]

I no way do I support anyone having or distributing CSAM. I'm just trying to understand the logic here. Are they suing car manufacturers when someone who uses a car to commit a crime? Are they trying to force a scenario where the government and/or vendor gets to sift through all your data and decide if a crime has been committed?

 

[Cervisia]

Bloody fascist. Just like those on the left in the EU pushing chat control for everyone except themselves.

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

Just another excuse for companies to monitor/sift through your data. If this sort of stuff continues I might have to look into alternatives that are not Apple or Google. As hard as that might be.

 

[Keymaster]

McKuskey is apparently a member of the Federalist Society, who have been pushing things like requiring ID to be online and other limits on internet activity meant to curtail anything they don't like. They want to put parents first, though that is code for making sure that kids aren't exposed to anything outside of their constricted worldview that's pushing the US to be a Christian nation ruled by white people instead of a nation of multiple cultures and religions that's enshrined in the Constitution.

When something like this comes out of left field it's a good idea otherwise look at the background of the people pushing it. It makes no sense for WV to sue Apple over this unless there's another agent pushing their puppet to make the move.

 

[dannyyankou]

They should spend more effort going after the predators who are actually sending and soliciting these images instead of going after Apple. There should absolutely be parental controls, along with good parenting, to protect minors. But I think most people don’t want a surveillance state.

 

[Rychiar]

Can everyone else sue apple if they add csam detection....

 

[CarAnalogy]

What the ****? Apple absolutely did not describe themselves that way internally. They aren't even the greatest regular picture distribution network. And they already use ML to detect nudity on device. Absolutely no way anyone at Apple has ever facilitated this, certainly not officially. Ridiculous.

 

[collin_]

We're really doing this again...?

 

[DocMultimedia]

It's clear that it's now time to ban all images from the internet. That solves all problems, and will prevent all these lawsuits. /s

Always blame others, and make all problems go away with lawsuits. Modern America.

 

[jarman92]

Goes without saying that this suit is meritless, but notable that the very first line is a sanction-worthy misrepresentation:

Apple, Inc. (“Apple”) has described itself as the “greatest platform for distributing child porn.”

Uh, no. One Apple employee said that in an internal message thread (and it was likely meant as hyperbole); in no way does that translate to Apple “describ[ing] itself” in those terms.

 

[ChromeAce]

Everyone shouldn’t have to lose privacy protection simply because some people are committing crimes.

Even if Apple scanned iCloud content, suspects would simply encrypt their data themselves and store it on iCloud Drive.

This kind of publicity generated by politicians serves a single purpose: using fear to fuel their own power.

The bigger concern isn’t whether Apple will cave or not, it’s what your ISP is already monitoring, recording, selling, and reporting you for… on everything you do online that isn’t encrypted.

 

[bg1419]

This is so stupid that I don’t even think it’s reasonable for everyone to have to add the “obviously I don’t support child porn/CSAM” disclaimer because that’s not what this is about; don’t waste words on what they want to distract you with, don’t legitimize their excuse by addressing it.

This is clearly an invasion of privacy and an attempt to erode civil liberties and expand government power, control, and surveillance. Full stop.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Goes without saying that this suit is meritless, but notable that the very first line is a sanction-worthy misrepresentation:



Uh, no. One Apple employee said that in an internal message thread (and it was likely meant as hyperbole); in no way does that translate to Apple “describ[ing] itself” in those terms.

One guy who wasn't authorized to say it also said one time that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows. No one can even track down the original quote, but it became widespread belief.

I agree that this is irresponsible levels of slander. Or libel. Whichever. First one then the other, I suppose.

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

This is so stupid that I don’t even think it’s reasonable for everyone to have to add the “obviously I don’t support CSAM” disclaimer because that’s not what this is about; don’t waste words on what they want to distract you with, don’t legitimize their excuse by addressing it.

This is clearly an invasion of privacy and an attempt to erode civil liberties and expand government power, control, and surveillance. Full stop.

If this is really the path that Apple is on, and given how they are so involved with the current Administration (that's not even the point for me, for me, it is the fact that Apple is so in bed with the government now), this is really making me consider Linux and switching to Android, just as a matter of principle.

 

[Spooner83]

West va is so poor, they'll do anything to make a dollar.

 

[thecombatwombat]

Federal law is crystal clear on this matter. In particular, in the section reporting requirements of providers, paragraph F states:



WV has nothing to stand on, and the AG knows it.

Reading the actual complaint is kind of fascinating, because yeah, they do seem to know it. It's page after page (literally 40+ pages) of hand wringing think of the children . . .

And then the actual complaint is . . . a consumer protection complaint. The actual legal complaint is basically "the product is defective beause snapchat has an integrated content reporting button." Because yeah, no CSAM law really says they're required to do anything, because that would be absurd.

In other words the lawsuit is largely the same as say, suing them for advertising that new Siri is coming out, and then not bringing it to market. It's surreal.

You have to jump all the way to page 42 of the complaint to get to the part where they actually say what they think is illegal, but it's kind of worth it, it's bizarre.

 

[I7guy]

If this is really the path that Apple is on, and given how they are so involved with the current Administration (that's not even the point for me, for me, it is the fact that Apple is so in bed with the government now), this is really making me consider Linux and switching to Android, just as a matter of principle.

Yeah. Just do it and dont think twice.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Interesting quote -- "Preserving the privacy of child predators is absolutely inexcusable." Unfortunately, our current Administration would disagree.

 

[bg1419]

If this is really the path that Apple is on, and given how they are so involved with the current Administration (that's not even the point for me, for me, it is the fact that Apple is so in bed with the government now), this is really making me consider Linux and switching to Android, just as a matter of principle.

I don’t think they’re in bed with them because they like them. I think they’ve just done the cost benefit analysis of “kiss trump’s ass, stock price remains stable.” But I don’t think that means they’d just abandon all their privacy beliefs, this is the company that told the FBI to f*** off, and won.