If EARN IT Passes, What Happens On Your iPhone Won’t Stay On Your iPhone

Last year, Apple announced a controversial plan to install photo scanning software in every device. Apple has long been seen as a pro-privacy company—billboards emblazoned with the slogan “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” were common sights in 2019. A global coalition pushed back, and the company paused the plan. 

Now, Congress wants to force Apple’s hand—along with essentially every company that allows users to store or share messages or content—and essentially mandate such scanning. 

While Apple’s plan would have put the privacy and security of its users at risk, the EARN IT Act compromises security and free speech for everyone. The bill would create serious legal risk for business that hosts content—messages, photos stored in the cloud, online backups—and, potentially, even cloud-hosting sites like those using Amazon Web Services, unless they use government-approved scanning tools. 

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TELL CONGRESS TO REJECT THE EARN IT ACT

The bill’s proponents claim that this isn’t a problem for any service as long as it is scanning files, and then reporting Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) to law enforcement. Internet companies are already required to report suspected CSAM if they come across it, and they report on a massive scale that comes with a lot of mistakes. Facebook is often held up as a positive example by lawmakers, but while new scanning techniques there have produced many millions of reports, many of them are apparently inaccurate. Federal law enforcement has frequently (mis)used the massive number of reports to suggest there has been a huge uptick

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