Apple, in its fight against child pornography, revives the debate on data privacy - France 24

Washington (AFP)

Tools unveiled by Apple to better detect sexual images involving children have rekindled the debate over data encryption and privacy, with some fearing the new technologies could be used by governments.

For the maker of iPhone, iPad and iMac, the initiative is intended to protect the youngest from predators operating on the internet.

It was above all a major turning point for the company, which had so far stood up to anyone who tried to bypass its encryption system to gain access to private messages.

In a technical note, Apple assured that one of its problematic photo detection tools, developed by cryptography experts, was "secure and expressly designed to preserve user privacy."

It should make it possible to compare the photos uploaded to its iCloud server with those stored in a file managed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) without having direct access to the image.

But encryption and privacy experts fear that it will be used for other purposes.

"This kind of tool can be very useful to find child pornography on people's phones. But imagine what it could do in the hands of an authoritarian government?", Asked Matthew Green on Twitter, cryptographer at Johns Hopkins University.

Another tool developed by Apple, which can scan photos received or sent by minors via iMessage messaging, could be the first step towards opening "back doors" in iPhones that can be used by hackers or governments. , experts also worry.

- Criminals and terrorists -

“There is going to be tremendous pressure on Apple from governments around the world to extend this detection capability to other types of + bad + content, and significant interest from hackers of all stripes to find ways to defeat it. 'exploit,' tweeted Matt Blaze, a computer and crypto researcher at Georgetown University.

Apple will not only scan the data hosted on its servers but also those stored in the phone itself, he also denounces.

The group, therefore, "potentially has access to all of your data."

These new tools will be available in the United States as the operating systems of the various devices of the Apple brand are updated.

"The new protections for children put in place by Apple are a game-changer," said John Clark, head of NCMEC.

They are materializing after years of tension between tech giants and the authorities.

Apple had categorically refused to help the police access the encrypted content of the cell phone of one of the perpetrators of an attack that killed 14 people in late 2015 in San Bernardino, California.

For FBI officials, the fact that the messages are end-to-end encrypted and can only be read by the sender and recipient actually protects criminals and terrorists, even when authorities have a search warrant.

- Confidentiality -

The social network Facebook itself is currently studying a way to use artificial intelligence to analyze the content of messages without decrypting them, according to The Information site.

On the other hand, for Will Cathcart, the boss of the WhatsApp messaging application bought by Facebook, Apple's approach is "bad" and it is "a setback for the privacy of people all over the world".

This system "can scan all private photos on your phone (...). It's not confidential," he tweeted on Friday.

"As the verifications take place directly on the device, they have the potential to bypass any encryption that is supposed to protect user privacy," abounds an open letter against Apple's technology, which is circulating online and was signed by more than 4,200 people and organizations.

Supporters of encryption argue that authorities already have access to a whole bunch of "digital traces" to track malicious activity and that any tool that can unlock the encryption could be exploited by malicious actors.

For James Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Apple's new tools make it possible to identify problematic content without having to send it directly to the authorities.

This will undoubtedly be insufficient in the eyes of government agencies.

"Apple has done its best to strike a balance between public safety and privacy, but it is arguably not enough for some of the more difficult security concerns," said Lewis.

© 2021 AFP