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Apple plans to apply a new child protection policy from iOS 15 and iPados 15 for scanning photos uploaded to iCloud.
This policy is for Apple to make it easier to report illegal child pornography images to law execution agencies, and at first glance Apple's policy is correct.
However, there are many controversy and confusion about Apple's method.
Therefore, in this article, I will explain the mechanism and how to deal with Apple if you do not want Apple to scan your iPhone.
Mechanism of photo scan function by Apple
One of the reasons for the confusion is that Apple simultaneously announced the child's protection function of two completely different mechanisms.
The first is the child pornoscan function for iCloud photos.This function is scanned by scanning photos to detect the digital finger print of child pornography, and match with the database of "Child Gender Abuse Content (CSAM)", which collects illegal images.
CSAM is operated by a US special corporation "Central for Missing and Exploited Children".
The second is a machine learning type opt -in function for only message apps mounted on the iPhone and iPad.This feature is used for pornography images in the message app to warn children and their parents.
The controversy is the first iCloud photo scan function, which is effective for all iCloud photo users.
If you upload a photo from an iPhone to iCloud photo while enabling the iCloud photo detection function, some analysis will be performed on the user's device, and it will be sent to iCloud.The algorithm is executed.
In addition, iCloud also performs another analysis.In this analysis, when the known child pornography number reaches 30, it flags the user's account.
In that case, Apple starts a manual examination process and grasps the images with flags (do nothing about the remaining images).
After that, a problematic photo will be sent to the CSAM program, and then the law enforcement will take over.
According to Apple's description, this program is only run on the known child pornography base by CSAM, and does not flag in nude photos such as general pornography and bathtubs.
The company also claims that this process is safe.
Mr. Craig Federigi, a senior vice president in charge of software engineering, talks about technical details in recent interviews with the US paper "Wall Street Journal (WSJ)".Please see the video.
Isn't the photo scanned?
According to Apple, this process does not perform the actual photo scan.
Basically, the user's photos are assigned "neural hash" (a few columns to identify photos) and compare them with the hash of the CSAM database.
The process is stored in the image, along with the image, in what the company calls "Safety Voucher".
After that, further analysis and matching are performed based on these hashes.
In other words, only if 30 safety vouchers match the CSAM image, the system will have a flag on the account, and whether or not there are actually illegal images will be checked with the human eye, and the corresponding image and account.Will be reported.
How to stop the iPhone photo scan by Apple
Now that the system's mechanism is understood, you should be able to judge whether you want to stop Apple scanning.
This scan is executed only when the photo is uploaded to iCloud.Photos sent in message apps such as "WhatsApp" or "Telegram" are not scanned.
However, if you don't want Apple to make this scan at all, you have to disable iCloud photos.
To do so, open the "Settings" app on the iPhone or iPad, move to the "Photo" section, and disable the "iCloud photo" function.
ポップアップから「Download Photos & Videos」オプションを選択して、iCloudフォトライブラリから写真をダウンロードします。
Also, "iCloud.From COM, you can download all photos to your computer.Now the iPhone will not upload new photos to iCloud and prevent Apple's photos scanning.
There is no other way.All major cloud backup providers have similar scanning functions.
The only difference is that Apple combines on -device scan and cloud scan, but everything is executed on the cloud.
If you want to avoid scanning of these photos, use local backups, NAS (network HDD), or completely end -to -end backup services.
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Source: Apple (1, 2), YouTube, WSJ
