MESSAGE
| DATE | 2014-08-05 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Email Survalience
|
On 08/05/2014 01:37 AM, Ruben Safir wrote:
> http://www.businessinsider.com/police-say-a-google-tip-about-child-abuse-led-to-arrest-2014-8
>
> This is the CURRENT state of the art.
>
Tech More: Google
Gmail
Privacy
Child Sex Crime
Google Spotted Explicit Images Of A Child In A Man's Email And Tipped
Off The Authorities
* Julie Bort
*
* Aug. 3, 2014, 12:00 PM
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Houston Detective David Nettles
KHOU 11 News
Houston Metro Detective David Nettles.
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A Houston man has been arrested after Google sent a tip to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying the man had explicit
images of a child in his email, according to Houston police.
The man was a registered sex offender, convicted of sexually assaulting
a child in 1994, reports Tim Wetzel at KHOU Channel 11 News in Houston.
"He was keeping it inside of his email. I can't see that information, I
can't see that photo, but Google can," Detective David Nettles of the
Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce told Channel 11.
After Google reportedly tipped off the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, the center alerted police, who used the information
to get a warrant.
A search of the man's other devices revealed more suspicious images and
text messages. Police arrested him and he's being held on a $200,000 bond.
On one hand, most people would certainly applaud the use of technology
to scan email in a case like this.
On the other, debate rages about how much privacy users can expect when
using Google's services like email. In a word: none.
A year ago, in a court brief, Google said as much.
Then,
in April, after a class-action case against Google for email scanning
fell apart, Google updated its terms of service to warn people that it
was automatically analyzing emails
.
Considering Google has been working to fight online child sexual abuse
since 2006, it stands to reason the company would scan emails looking
for those sorts of images. Google hinted strongly at it about a year ago
when Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google Giving, specifically
mentioned the National Center's "CyberTipline" in a blog post
.The
CyberTiplinereceives leads and tips regarding suspected crimes.
Fuller explained:
In 2011, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children?s
(NCMEC?s) Cybertipline Child Victim Identification Program reviewed 17.3
million images and videos of suspected child sexual abuse. ...
Since 2008, we?ve used 'hashing' technology to tag known child sexual
abuse images, allowing us to identify duplicate images which may exist
elsewhere. ...
We?re in the business of making information widely available, but
there?s certain 'information' that should never be created or found. *We
can do a lot to ensure it?s not available online?and that when people
try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted.*
Online service providers like Google are required under federal and many
states? laws to report child pornography when they find it,
attorney Chris Jay
Hoofnagle, director of information privacy programs at the Berkeley
Center for Law & Technology tells Business Insider.
However they are under no obligation to go out and look for it,
Hoofnagle says. "But if you look and you see it, you have to report."
Google responded by telling us that it does indeed search for such
images in Gmail. Here's the statement:
Sadly all Internet companies have to deal with child sexual abuse. *It?s
why Google actively removes illegal imagery from our services --
including search and Gmail -- and immediately reports abuse to NCMEC.*
This evidence is regularly used to convict criminals. Each child sexual
abuse image is given a unique digital fingerprint which enables our
systems to identify those pictures, including in Gmail. It is important
to remember that we only use this technology to identify child sexual
abuse imagery, not other email content that could be associated with
criminal activity (for example using email to plot a burglary).
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