S5:E7 - Apple’s #SpyPhone, an Apple App Store Settlement, and the Expansion of Government Facial Recognition Software

In this episode, we talk about an the expansion of government facial recognition software and an Apple App store settlement. Then we speak with Yafit Lev-Aretz, assistant professor of law at Baruch College and the Director of Tech Ethics program at the Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity, about Apple scanning iCloud images and iMessages for child sexual abuse material. Then we speak with Anunay Kulshrestha, Princeton Computer Science doctoral candidate, whose team had built a similar child sexual abuse materal scanning system, about the potential privacy and cybersecurity risks that implementing such a system creates.

Show Notes

• Scout APM (DevNews) (sponsor)
• CodeLand (sponsor)
• Facial Recognition Software: Current and Planned Uses by Federal Agencies
• System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot
• Apple Settles With App Developers Without Making Major Concessions
• The All-Seeing "i": Apple Just Declared War on Your Privacy
• Apple: Expanded Protections for Children
• Opinion: We built a system like Apple’s to flag child sexual abuse material — and concluded the tech was dangerous
• Identifying Harmful Media in End-to-End Encrypted Communication: Efficient Private Membership Computation

Yafit Lev-Aretz

Yafit Lev-Aretz is an assistant professor of law at the Zicklin School of Business (Baruch College, City University of New York), and the ​​Director of Tech Ethics program at the Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity. Professor Lev-Aretz is a tech policy expert with over fifteen years of experience in studying and operationalizing the relationship between law, technology, and society.

Anunay Kulshrestha

Anunay Kulshrestha is a doctoral candidate in Computer Science at Princeton University, affiliated with the Center for Information Technology Policy. His research interests lie in applied cryptography and computer security, and their policy implications for privacy in today’s networked world. He is interested in understanding how cryptographic techniques can yield transparency- and accountability-enhancing privacy-preserving solutions to policy problems of trust.

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