Fight for the Future will hold protests against iPhone backdoor surveillance at Apple Stores on September 13th. Apple has currently delayed the ill-conceived scheme to scan users’ photo libraries, ostensibly for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), but which could easily be bastardized by authoritarian governments and agencies to scan for political images, words, etc.
No matter how well-intentioned, @Apple is rolling out mass surveillance to the entire world with this. Make no mistake: if they can scan for kiddie porn today, they can scan for anything tomorrow.
They turned a trillion dollars of devices into iNarcs—*without asking.* https://t.co/wIMWijIjJk
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 6, 2021
On August 5, 2021 Apple announced that its next iOS update will include new surveillance features that will scan all photos uploaded to iCloud Photos and all iMessage images sent or received by child accounts. This announcement, which the company claims is meant to prevent child exploitation, creates a backdoor that actually endangers children, threatens human rights, will especially impact marginalized people, and destroys privacy and security on Apple devices.
There is no question that child abuse is a crisis that needs to be addressed, but broad surveilance of peoples’ devices is not the solution. This sort of monitoring is a shocking departure from Apple’s former commitment to privacy and security for its users. Because these scans happen on the devices themselves, they would bypass end-to-end encryption and establish a new precedent for law enforcement to access information on personal devices. Apple is the only major tech company to take this incredibly dangerous step—but once they do, others may be forced to follow…
There is still time to stop this — Apple could reverse course and decide to not push this update. Sign the petition and email Apple leadership to tell them to drop these plans and recommit to never opening any sort of backdoor to monitor our communications.
Join a #nospyphone Protest
MacDailyNews Take: We encourage everyone who can to join a #nospyphone Protest at one of the following Apple Retail Store locations (additional locations may be added; you can host a protest (more info here) on September 13th at 6:00pm local time:
• Boston Protest, 815 Boylston St., Boston, Massachusetts
• Portland Protest, 450 SW Yamhill St., Portland, Oregon
• Atlanta Protest, 3393 Peachtree Rd. NE, Atlanta, Georgia
• San Francisco Protest, 300 Post St., San Francisco, California
• New York Protest, Address TBD, New York, New York
• Washington D.C. Protest, 801 K St. NW, Washington, DC
More info, and the opportunity to add your name to the following petition here.
Tell Apple: No Spyware on my Phone
Apple is abandoning its commitment to privacy with iOS 15 by creating an unprecedented backdoor it can use to scan everything on your Apple devices, including photos and messages. They say that this is to stop child sex abuse material, but once the backdoor exists, it will be used to surveil & censor people. Don’t let Apple throw away the privacy and security of billions.
Sign the petition here.