Apple urged to drop plans to scan iMessages, images for sex abuse

More than 90 policy and rights groups ask company to abandon plans for scanning phones of adults for images of child sex abuse.

More than 90 policy and rights groups around the world have published an open letter urging Apple to abandon plans for scanning children’s messages for nudity and the phones of adults for images of child sex abuse. “Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material, we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children,” the groups wrote in the letter, according to a Reuters news agency report on Thursday. The largest campaign to date over an encryption issue at a single company was organised by the United States-based nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).