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Tim Sweeney, the head of Epic Games, has attacked Apple over its iCloud photos and child safety initiatives, arguing that it is a way for governments to exercise oversight.
Apple on Thursday launched a suite of tools to help protect children online and reduce the spread of child pornography (CSAM). As part of the tools, the initiative would introduce functionality to iMessage, Siri, and Search, as well as a mechanism to scan iCloud photos for known CSM images.
As part of the wave of criticism against Apple, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney took to Twitter again to complain about Apple’s move. After an earlier stint on the microblogging service Friday, Sweeney’s Saturday proclamations introduced tools like Apple potentially enabling future monitoring of user data for governments.
“I tried to see this from Apple’s point of view,” Sweeney’s thread begins, “but it is inevitably government software installed by Apple on the basis of a presumption of guilt. ‘Apple wrote the code, its function is to analyze personal data and report it to the government.
“It’s totally different from a content moderation system on a public forum or social media,” continued the CEO. “Before the operator chooses to host the data publicly, it can analyze it for anything it doesn’t want to host. But that’s people’s private data.”
Sweeney’s accusations of analyzing personal data are somewhat at odds with how Apple’s system actually works. Rather than looking at the image itself, the scanning system compares the mathematical hashes of files stored on iCloud.
I tried to see this from Apple’s point of view. But inescapably, it is government spyware installed by Apple on the basis of a presumption of guilt. Although Apple wrote the code, its function is to scan personal data and report it to the government.https: //t.co/OrkfOSjvS1
– Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 7, 2021
The hashes generated from the files are compared to known CSAM image hashes, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is notified of the reported counts.
Also, scanning only applies to iCloud photos and images stored only on the device with iCloud Photos turned off cannot be reviewed in this way.
Sweeney goes on to say that Apple uses “dark patterns” to enable iCloud downloads by default, forcing people to “accumulate junk data, and hints at how iCloud.com email accounts cannot be deleted. without a user losing everything they bought in the Apple ecosystem.
Referring to the Epic-Apple antitrust lawsuit and testimony that Apple must comply with all applicable laws wherever it does business, Sweeney mentions “likely Apple will now be a watchdog of the state wherever it does business. this is necessary, “before referring to Apple’s relationship with the Chinese government. .
Sweeney concludes his discussion thread by writing, “Freedom is due to due process and limited government. The existential threat here is an unnatural alliance between the government, the monopolies that control online speech, and everyone’s devices, using the guise of private companies to circumvent constitutional protections.
While the CEO of Epic is known to have attacked Apple on Twitter throughout and after the major App Store lawsuit, Chinese tech giant Tencent has a 40% stake in the developer and publisher of the. Game.
Tencent previously reportedly complied with the Chinese government to monitor non-Chinese users of its WeChat messaging app. In 2020, it was believed that surveillance was being used to better censor the content of user accounts registered in China.
WeChat is also seen as a tool used to monitor dissidents, including censoring speech and punishing political opponents who speak badly of the government.
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