West Virginia's Attorney General has filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of allowing its iCloud service to become a primary platform for distributing child sexual abuse material. Attorney General JB McCuskey stated Apple prioritized user privacy over child safety. The lawsuit, filed in Mason County Circuit Court, seeks damages and urges Apple to implement more effective detection measures and safer product designs.
The state cited an internal Apple communication from 2020 describing iCloud as the "greatest platform for distributing child porn." Unlike competitors like Google and Microsoft, which scan uploaded content against databases of known abuse material, Apple's approach until 2022 did not involve comprehensive scanning of iCloud data. While Apple developed a system called NeuralHash to balance privacy and detection, it was criticized and ultimately canceled in December 2022.
In 2023, Apple reported 267 instances of abuse material, significantly fewer than Google's 1.47 million and Meta's 30.6 million. The state's claims echo those in a separate class-action lawsuit against Apple, which the company is seeking to dismiss, citing protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.