Using a tool called “NeuralMatch,” company officials say they’ll be able to find illegal pics in customers’ iPhones without decrypting the users’ personal messages.

A phone’s contents will be looked at only if the tool finds an offending image, according to Apple execs.

The new system will detect images called Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) using a process called hashing, where images are transformed into unique numbers that correspond to that image.

Needless to say, the plan has already been met by plenty of backlash.

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Cryptography researcher Matthew Green says the program will make it easy for people to frame others by sending them seemingly harmless photos that are encrypted to give “NeuralMatch” a positive result. “Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily,” he says.

Apple started testing the system on Thursday, but most iPhone users in the US won’t be part of it until an iOS 15 update later this year, Apple said.

Susan Saunders 8/6/21