West Virginia is suing Apple for allegedly allowing child abuse to spread in iCloud

West Virginia has File a lawsuit against AppleThe company was accused of allowing the distribution and storage of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in iCloud. in The lawsuit was filed ThursdayWest Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCosky claims that by abandoning its CSAM detection system in favor of end-to-end encryption, iCloud has become a “secure, frictionless means of possessing, protecting, and distributing CSAM,” violating the state’s consumer protection laws.

Now, West Virginia is alleging that Apple “knowingly and willfully designed its products with willful indifference to highly preventable harm.” Makowski believes other countries could take legal action against Apple as well, telling reporters during a press conference that he believes they will “see the leadership that this office has taken” and “join us in this fight.”

The lawsuit alleges that Apple submitted 267 CSAM reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is fewer than the more than 1.47 million reports filed by Google, and the more than 30.6 million reports filed by Meta. He also cites an internal letter between Apple executives in which Apple’s head of fraud, Eric Friedman, allegedly stated that iCloud is “the greatest platform for distributing child pornography.”

Many online platforms, including Google, Reddit, Snap, Meta, and others, use tools like Microsoft’s PhotoDNA or Google’s Content Safety API to detect, remove, and report child sexual abuse material in photos and videos sent through their systems. Apple doesn’t currently offer these capabilities, but has since rolled out some kid-safety-focused features, including parental controls Ask kids for permission to send text messages to new numbersAs well as the tool for it Automatically blurs nude photos of minors on iMessage in other apps. But Makowski believes that these guarantees are not enough to protect children.

“Apple intentionally designed a set of tools that significantly reduce the friction to possess, collect, protect, and disseminate child sexual abuse material, while designing an encryption shield that makes it more likely that bad actors will use Apple to protect their illicit activities,” the lawsuit alleges.