[$] Scanning "private" content

Child pornography and other types of sexual abuse of children are unquestionablyheinous crimes; those who participate in them should be caught and severelypunished. But some recent efforts to combat these scourges have gone a goodways down the path toward a kind of AI-driven digital panopticon that willinvade the privacy of everyone in order to try to catch people who areviolating laws prohibiting those activities. It is thus no surprise that privacyadvocates are up in arms about an Apple plan to scan iPhone messages andan EU measureto allow companies to scan private messages, both looking for "child sexual abuse material" (CSAM). As with many things of thisnature, there are concerns about the collateral damage that these efforts willcause-not to mention the slippery slope that is being created.