A group of scientists and researchers have sharply criticised European Commission plans to scan smartphone apps for evidence of child sexual abuse as “doomed to be ineffective”. The EC has proposed a new law aimed at stopping the spread of child sexual abuse imagery and the grooming of children by allowing national authorities to compel providers of smartphone apps and online services to scan individual devices. The law would allow for the scanning of messages, pictures, emails, voicemails and other phone data of users. “Given the horrific nature of child sexual abuse, it is understandable, and indeed tempting, to hope that there is a technological intervention that can eradicate it,” the group said. They said it was “virtually always possible” for those disseminating material such as child sexual abuse imagery to make those files impossible to detect by subtly altering an image’s code.

Source: Irish Examiner July 04, 2023 23:11 UTC