This week, Apple announced and then explained (pdf) the measures they’re taking to protect children (so: trigger warning) from grooming and to stop abusers from storing images of child sexual abuse in iCloud Photo Storage. Daring Fireball’s Jon Gruber seems to have a balanced unpacking of the situation. The change is coming to iOS 15, with opt-in parental controls on messaging within family accounts and for uploads to iCloud Photo Storage. It is restricted to the USA for now — among the questions raised are whether another state could insist that other material to be flagged for “Thinks Different” content.
The restriction to the USA reflects the CLOUD Act which arose when US federal law enforcement couldn’t compel Microsoft to supply emails from a server located in Ireland. It kind-of forces USA-based companies to store data for USA people inside the USA, and so makes the legal process for compelling access much easier.
Apple avoid any need to comply with this if they disallow material to be uploaded to iCloud Photo Storage with this change — so get to continue proclaiming the privacy of their ecosystem by virtue of “you own the device, we own the network services.”