# Apple announces then delays on-device CSAM scanning

Date: 2021

## The fact

On 5 August 2021 Apple announced on-device CSAM scanning for iCloud Photos, then delayed the feature after cryptographers and child-safety groups split.

## Context

Neighbouring FBI 2016 is a different client-side fight. Neighbouring privacy labels are neighbouring brand. He did not write a mandatory scanning statute.

FBI 2016 is neighbouring encryption. ATT 2021 is neighbouring privacy engineering.

[Tim Cook](/people/tim-cook) has been Apple CEO since 24 August 2011. He does not write a DOJ complaint, a Commission DMA decision, an Irish Finance Act, or a Chinese Cyberspace Administration rule. Steve Jobs is a different, dead person. A product launch is not a labour statute. A privacy keynote is not a completed DMA compliance certificate. Keep those dates separate. A 10-K climate page is not a unique ppm. An assembler audit is not a unique suicide count as his personal tally. A DMA listing is not a completed sideload world. A DOJ complaint is not a breakup. TSMC fabricates; Foxconn assembles; App Review enforces.

## Evidence and sources

Apple carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [personal-data-protection](/drivers/personal-data-protection) mixed with protection of children: a completed announce-and-delay is a surveillance-design instrument that did not ship as first described.

## What is established and what is not

Established: August 2021 CSAM announcement and subsequent delay, independently reported.

Not established: that child abuse uniquely rose or fell because of the delay, or a unique later detection coefficient.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Cryptographers objected. Child-safety groups split. The feature did not ship as first described.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Apple announces then delays on-device CSAM scanning, not a later speech about Apple announces then delays on-device CSAM scanning.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Apple announces then delays on-device CSAM scanning on 2021-08-05 is not a licence to treat every later Apple communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Apple announces then delays on-device CSAM scanning into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He owned the announcement as CEO. Cryptographers objected. Child-safety groups split. The feature did not ship as first described. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Tim Cook: https://factrail.ai/people/tim-cook

## Drivers

- Personal-Data Protection: https://factrail.ai/drivers/personal-data-protection
- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-csam-scanning-delay-2021-09-03/
- https://www.apple.com/child-safety/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/aapl-csam-2021