Apple Can Scan Pictures that You Upload to iCloud

If you own an iPhone, you need to be extra careful about the images that you try to upload to the cloud. Apple has an app that will automatically scan attempted uploads for images that it considers child pornography and will now report them to law enforcement.

Those with iPhones need to know that there really is someone else watching, even when they think that they have privacy on their iPhones. People often think that Apple does not help law enforcement when they are looking for something on their phones. However, that is not the case when it comes to images and possible evidence of child pornography.

Your iPhone Is Not as Secure as You Think

Nothing you send or upload from your iPhone should be considered completely secure. In the background, Apple has an app that is digitally scanning everything that you upload. This program is checking some of the data behind the pictures that you email and comparing it to previously identified images of known child pornography. While Apple is not manually checking every email, it is scanning every picture that you send.

Apple will not automatically send every single suspicious image straight to law enforcement, but it will inspect images that set off its filters. Then, it may send the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

There is nothing to say that Apple cannot do this. First, you agreed to allow Apple to scan any content that you try to upload to iCloud. Second, images that you try to upload to the cloud have figuratively left your possession, and they can be scrutinized by law enforcement. Once you try to upload an image, you give up expectations of privacy.

Apple’s Scans Can Prompt a Search Warrant

This would likely be enough for law enforcement to claim that they have the probable cause that they need to seize and search your iPhone. Once they have access to your iPhone, they might find more things that they could possibly try to use against you.

For child pornography defendants, the problem is when the scan of your images against the known images of illegal pictures produces a false positive. Then, law enforcement has managed to get their hands on your iPhone based on probable cause that they should never have had.

This is why you need an attorney the second that you become aware that law enforcement has a search warrant. Your defense attorney will review the warrant to ensure that it meets legal standards and will challenge it if necessary. If the warrant was never valid in the first place, evidence that law enforcement has seized from you could be thrown out as “fruit of the poisonous tree.”

Contact an Internet Sex Crimes Attorney

If you are facing an internet sex crimes charge or know that you are under investigation, contact the criminal defense attorneys at Cohen Law Offices online or call at (715) 514-5051. If you delay in hiring a lawyer, your legal rights and your freedom may be at greater risk.