A 27-year-old woman has filed a major lawsuit against Apple, claiming the tech giant failed to protect victims of child sexual abuse by not implementing available tools to detect and remove illegal content stored on iCloud.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, seeks over $1.2 billion in damages on behalf of potentially 2,680 victims. The plaintiff, who remains anonymous, was victimized as an infant when a relative took explicit photographs and distributed them online.
In late 2021, she was notified that abuse images were discovered on a MacBook in Vermont and stored in Apple's iCloud service. This occurred after Apple had developed but ultimately abandoned its NeuralHash system - a tool designed to scan and identify known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on iCloud accounts.
According to court documents, Apple scrapped the CSAM detection feature following criticism from privacy researchers and cybersecurity experts who warned it could enable government surveillance overreach. The lawsuit argues that by prioritizing privacy concerns over safety measures, Apple amplified risks to abuse victims.
The legal action claims Apple sold defective products that caused harm by failing to implement promised protections. With minimum damages of $150,000 per victim and potential triple damages under law, the total award could exceed $1.2 billion if Apple is found liable.
The case highlights ongoing tensions between digital privacy and online safety, particularly regarding tech companies' responsibilities to combat the spread of illegal content while protecting user privacy.