Australia accuses Apple, Microsoft of not taking measures to keep out child exploitation content

Australian regulator e-Safety Commissioner held Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc responsible for not taking appropriate measures to regulate child exploitation content available on their platform.The Internet Safety watchdog issued a report after it used new powers to get information about the methods being used by the tech giants.

On Thursday, the e-Safety Commissioner said that after legal demands were sent to some of the largest internet firms in the world requesting information, the responses received showed that proactive screening was not done by Apple and Microsoft for child abuse material in OneDrive and iCloud, which are their storage services.

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In the information received, it was confirmed that no technology was used by the two firms to detect child sexual abuse’s live-streaming on video services Microsoft Teams and Skype, which fall under the ambit of Microsoft, as well as Apple’s FaceTime, the report published by the commissioner stated.

A spokesperson from Microsoft talked about the commitment of the company to combat the proliferation of abusive material but "as threats to children's safety continue to evolve and bad actors become more sophisticated in their tactics, we continue to challenge ourselves to adapt our response".

As per the commissioner, the information confirms the lack of implementation of child protection measures by the biggest tech firms and increases public pressure on them to be more vigilant.

Information was also sought from Meta Platforms Inc, which is the owner of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, and from Snap Inc, owner of Snapchat.

In a statement, Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that the overall responses were "alarming" and expressed her concern about "clearly inadequate and inconsistent use of widely available technology to detect child abuse material and grooming.”

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Microsoft and Apple "do not even attempt to proactively detect previously confirmed child abuse material" on their devices used for storage, although law enforcement agencies use a Microsoft-developed detection product.

Inman Grant said that an announcement recently made by Apple, stating that it won’t be scanning accounts of iCloud for child abuse, was "a major step backwards from their responsibilities to help keep children safe".

Both firms’ failure in detecting live-streamed abuse amounted to "some of the biggest and richest technology companies in the world turning a blind eye and failing to take appropriate steps to protect the most vulnerable from the most predatory," she said.

(With inputs from agencies)