Apple delays Child Safety features

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Apple has announced that it is delaying the release of Child Safety features, following widespread criticism from customers and privacy advocacy groups.

The company says that it will take “additional time” to “collect input and make improvements” before releasing the features to the public.

Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material. Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.

Announced in July, the new Child Safety features were aimed at tackling the spread of CSAM online. The features were planned to launch in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey.

One feature would protect younger children from seeing unsolicited nude or pornograhic images in iMessage. Images would be hidden, and the user would need to confirm they want to view it. At that point, the child’s parent would receive a notification.

Apple also planned to update Siri and search with more guidance on CSAM and how to report it.

More controversially, it announced that it would perform on-device scanning to identify images stored in iCloud Photos that match a database of known CSAM content. After, the contents are sent to Apple and encrypted using unreadable hashes, where, if found to be a match, the image would be reviewed.

It has now delayed all of these features in response to global concerns. Apple also updated its Child Safety webpage with a similar statement to the one above.

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Published to Apple Scoop on 3rd September, 2021.