While there are great efforts around the world to prevent children from being sexually abused, an application implemented by Apple last year received a lot of backlash. Apple’s new feature automatically scans for new photos added to iCloud and reports it to a human administrator when it finds evidence of child abuse. If the finding of child abuse was confirmed in the investigation, the person’s account was also banned.
While the feature in question received a lot of backlash and was withdrawn by Apple, today an interesting news came from Google. According to the news shared by The New York Times, Google banned a father’s account in February 2021 for content that indicates child abuse. However, the incident revealed the inadequacy of artificial intelligence in this regard.
The father photographed his genital area for the treatment of his sick child and sent it to the doctor:
In the incident, which occurred during the period when the coronavirus was dominant and hospitals were closed, the father saw a discharge in his child’s genital area. The father, who applied to the doctor, photographed his daughter’s genital area at the request of his doctor and sent it to the doctor. Based on this image, the doctor gave antibiotics against the infection that occurred in the girl.
But two days after the image was taken, the father named Mark received a notification from Google. The notice stated that his account was banned for ‘harmful content’ and ‘serious violations of Google policies and may be illegal’. This way, Mark lost access to his email, contacts, photos, and phone number as he used Google’s Fi mobile service.
Google turned down your father’s complaint:
Mark then appealed against Google’s decision, but Google turned down your father’s request. In addition to all these, the father was complained to the law enforcement officers in the region where he lived, upon the detection of the said image. The San Francisco Police Department launched an investigation against the father in December 2021 based on this complaint.
Fortunately, in the investigation, the decision was made in favor of the father and the authorities concluded that the incident “did not meet the elements of the crime and there was no crime”. In a statement to The Verge, Google continued to defend the artificial intelligence system and did not include clear statements about the event.
The company stated that they followed US law to detect CSAM. He also shared that a team of child safety experts is reviewing the accuracy of flagged content and consulting with pediatricians to help them identify situations where users might seek medical advice.
Google published its artificial intelligence developed to prevent child abuse in 2018. The company reported 621,583 CSAM incidents in 2021, as a result of which it warned authorities about 4,260 potential people, including Mark.
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