In the US, parents have lost access to all Google services for sending photos of their children’s genitals to doctors for a preliminary diagnosis.
While plans for chat control to combat child abuse are being discussed loudly in the European Union, cases from the USA show the unforeseen consequences such systems can have. The New York Times reports two cases in which concerned parents sent photos of their child’s genitals to doctors and subsequently lost access to all Google services used.
Although law enforcement authorities have dropped the investigation in both cases, Google services remain blocked for both. One of the fathers no longer expects anything from the IT company, but hopes that he can at least get the stored data back from the police.
Search for unidentified depictions of child abuse
As the newspaper explains, both cases involve photos that were taken and sent at the request of a doctor. The aim was to get an impression of diseases in the genital area of the little boys before visiting the doctor. In both cases, it was about Android smartphones where the photos taken were automatically synchronized with Google and uploaded to the cloud. Special software from Google, which not only carries out a comparison with known depictions of child abuse, but also automatically searches for new ones, then issued a warning. This led to a more detailed analysis, notifications to prosecutors and the blocking of all services used.
In one case, the father not only lost access to his e-mail account and his entire address book, but also to all the photos with which he had documented his son’s first year of life, the US newspaper writes. Because he also had his mobile phone contract through Google, he didn’t just have to get a new one. Without access to his old cell phone number, he was no longer able to log into other Internet services. All in all, he’s been locked out of much of his digital life. The second father, whose experiences are summarized, was about to buy a house. When his Gmail account was blocked, this led to problems with the broker.
In light of the reports, the Electronic Frontier Foundation renewed its criticism of the automatic screening of private data: “That’s exactly the nightmare scenario that we’re all worried about,” says Jon Callas of the newspaper’s civil rights organization. Although the police confirmed that there were no allegations against both fathers after investigations, they no longer have access to their Google accounts. When asked, the group confirmed that they would stick with it.
A law professor working on the matter speculated that from the company’s perspective it would be easier to do so than to have to decide what is acceptable and what is not. One of the fathers involved is now using a Hotmail email account, for which people are ridiculing him.
