The perks of the internet are quite obvious and known to all but as they say “with every blessing comes a curse.” Similarly, the digital boom has brought along various concerns, online child exploitation being one.
The number of  pedophiles lurking around the internet trying to exploit innocent and vulnerable children for their evil acts is increasing day by day. Parents are increasingly worried and even panicking because of the growing rate of  online child sexual abuse .
Reportedly, Apple will be  launching  a new machine learning-based system to be released later this year as part of the upcoming versions of iOS and iPadOS to ensure enhanced child safety. 
The system will scan iPhones across the USA to detect the presence of child sexual abuse images. Moreover, the messages app in iPhones will issue a warning whenever a child receives or tries to send sexually explicit images.
Could It be Exploited?
Critics of this system have raised concerns that this technology might be expanded for scanning phones for banned/prohibited content or political views/speech. In addition to this, Apple is planning to scan users’ encrypted messages to locate sexually explicit content as a separate child safety measure.
It is worth noting that the detection system will flag images of child pornography already present in the center’s database. So, parents need not worry about it.
According to John Hopkins University’s top cryptography researcher, Matthew Green, this system can be used to target and trap innocent people by sending them objectionable images to trigger a match with child porn images. Apple’s algorithm could be fooled easily, and anyone could be framed because such systems are easily tricked.
“Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily. What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for… Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no,” Green stated .
Here’s what Edward Snowden has to say about the new development:
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