German journalists call on EU to act against Apple's CSAM

The German journalists' union recently asked the European Commission to take legislative action against Apple so that Apple does not implement its CSAM tools. Across the Rhine, journalists believe that this system will make it possible to collect contact information and carry out other intrusions.

As a reminder, Apple's CSAM tools are intended to help in the fight against child pornography and the sharing of illegal images of children. But since their arrival was announced in early August, these tools have been seen by many as a threat to user privacy. A value which was nevertheless the credo of the Apple.

In order to dispel doubts about this new functionality, which has not yet arrived, Apple has only announced it for the end of the year. The Cupertino company nevertheless publishedan FAQ, and Craig Federighi recognized that the apple brand hadlacked accuracy in communicationon this subject, which left the door open to doubts for many people who are very concerned about respecting their privacy (Edward Snowden reacted in particular following Apple's announcement press release on CSAM).

A violation of the GDPR

According to the association's spokesperson, Hubert Krech, Apple has introduced“a tool with which a company wants to access other user data on its own devices, such as contracts and confidential documents”, which is considered a violation of GDPR rules.

Concerns exaggerated by the German union, CSAM only compares iCloud images with an existing database. The second function of the tool concerns iMessage on children's phones, a system that is not under Apple's control, but only under the parental Family Sharing manager account.