Lawsuit over Apple's abandonment of iCloud CSAM detection
A 27-year-old American abuse survivor has filed a lawsuit against Apple on behalf of reportedly 2,680 victims, alleging the company failed to deploy its NeuralHash child sexual abuse material detection tool on iCloud, allowing illegal content to circulate. Apple suspended NeuralHash in 2021 due to privacy concerns from civil liberties groups, despite initially designing it to scan and detect such material.
What happened
Apple designed and announced NeuralHash in 2021, a tool to analyze iCloud contents and detect known child sexual abuse material using a database maintained by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Apple suspended NeuralHash before deployment after civil liberties groups and privacy advocates raised concerns that the system could be misused for government surveillance.
A 27-year-old American woman filed suit on December 7, 2024, in federal court in California on behalf of approximately 2,680 abuse survivors, alleging that Apple's abandonment of NeuralHash allowed child sexual abuse material depicting them to remain and circulate on iCloud.
Reported impact
The plaintiff has received notifications for over ten years of her images reappearing via iCloud, perpetuating her trauma since her childhood abuse was photographed and shared online.
The lawsuit alleges that in 2021, the plaintiff's images were found stored on another user's MacBook and hosted on iCloud, shortly after Apple suspended NeuralHash.
Index analysis
According to reporting, Apple reports only hundreds of child sexual abuse material cases annually to authorities, significantly fewer than the millions reported by competitors Google and Facebook.
Investigators retained by the plaintiff's legal team identified over 80 cases of individuals possessing child sexual abuse material on iCloud, with one user holding over 2,000 such images.
Governance controls
Apple stated: 'Child sexual abuse material is abominable and we are committed to fighting how predators endanger children. We are actively and urgently innovating to combat these crimes without compromising the safety and privacy of all our users.'
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.