West Virginia sues Apple, accuses tech giant of letting iCloud become hub for child sexual abuse material
West Virginia brought a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday over allegations the big tech giant lets predators easily hide child sexual abuse material in its iCloud storage, marking the first...
By Fox News · Fox News
West Virginia brought a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday over allegations the big tech giant lets predators easily hide child sexual abuse material in its iCloud storage, marking the first time a state has sued the company over the issue. Attorney General JB McCuskey, who is leading the lawsuit, told Fox News Digital in an interview that Apple is an "outlier in the marketplace" when it comes to cloud-based storage and that the company has long refused to run adequate filters through its storage, unlike Meta and Google, although those companies differ from Apple in that they run massive social media platforms. "They're producing millions and millions and millions of reports for federal and state law enforcement officials about people trying to store child pornographic images in their clouds," McCuskey said. "Apple, on the other hand, their total number of reports is in the hundreds." HOUSE MOVES TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM ONLINE PREDATORS AS AUSTRALIA CLAMPS DOWN ON SOCIAL MEDIA McCuskey argued that Apple, which prides itself on its encryption features of its iCloud which are lauded by privacy hawks, is incentivized to manage its iCloud data in a way that is lucrative for the company. "Every single byte of data that you're using to store in the iCloud is a way for Apple to make money, and so they're using user privacy as a guise for what is really a bonanza for them to make money as child predators store their images, distribute their images through the Apple cloud," McCuskey said. West Virginia’s complaint against Apple, filed in Mason County Circuit Court, demands that the company begin employing detective measures that scan cloud storage for child sexual abuse material. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital that its products effectively shield young users from harmful content, though the spokesperson did not address how it manages possible child sexual abuse material on the iCloud that adults could access. GRAHAM LEADS BIPARTISAN DEMAND FOR…