Apple’s plan to scan for child abuse images ‘tears at heart of privacy’

Security experts say technology on iPhones could open door to mass surveillance and be misused

Technology like that proposed by Apple to search iPhones for child sexual abuse images would open the door to mass surveillance and be vulnerable to exploitation, world-leading security and cryptography experts have said.

Client-side scanning (CSS) gives access to data on users' devices, including stored data, which brings surveillance to a new level", according to analysis from academics at Harvard Kennedy school, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Cambridge, among others.