West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskeyhas announced a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of knowingly allowing iCloud to be used to distribute and store child sexual abuse (CSAM). McCuskey says Apple has chosen to “do nothing about it” for years.
“Preserving the privacy of pedophiles is completely unjustifiable. And more importantly, it violates West Virginia law. Given that Apple has so far refused to exercise self-control and do what is morally right, I am filing this lawsuit to demand that Apple comply with the law, report these images, and stop re-victimizing children by allowing the storage and distribution of these images,” said Attorney General JB McCuskey.
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According to the lawsuit [PDF], Apple has internally described itself as the “largest platform for the distribution of child pornography,” but it files far fewer reports of CSAM compared to other companies like Google and Meta.
In 2021, Apple announced new child safety features, including a system that would detect CSAM in images stored in iCloud Photos. However, it later decided to abandon its plans to detect CSAM on the platform.
What Apple says about CSAM content and child protection
“Children can be protected without companies digging into personal data, and we will continue to work with governments, child advocates, and other companies to help protect young people, uphold their right to privacy, and make the internet a safer place for children and for all of us,” Apple said when it announced it would not implement the feature.
See also: New Mexico: Meta facilitates pedophile activity
Apple later explained that creating a tool to scan private iCloud data would “create new risks for data theft by malicious users.”
The West Virginia Attorney General says Apple has evaded its responsibility to protect children under the guise of user privacy, and that Apple’s decision not to develop detection technology is a choice, not passive negligence. The lawsuit argues that since Apple has complete control over the hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure, it cannot claim to be an “unknowing, passive conduit of CSAM.”
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The lawsuit seeks damages and injunctive relief requiring Apple to implement effective CSAM detection measures.
Apple was also sued in 2024 for its decision to abandon CSAM detection. A lawsuit representing a potential group of 2,680 victims said Apple's failure to implement monitoring tools CSAM has caused ongoing harm to victims. That lawsuit seeks $1.2 billion.
