On August 5, 2021 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple oddly forewarns child pornographers that their photos on iDevices will be scanned for illegal content starting this fall." Then on August 9, 2021 we followed up with a report titled "Apple Categorically Denies that their Upcoming iOS Feature aimed at Exposing Sexual Predators is a Backdoor that reduces Privacy." Both reports contained full length documents from Apple showing their support for fighting child pornography. Then sadly, there was a backlash from the Apple community and Apple backed away from their initial stance on the issue and the child pornographers were handed a victory.

The BBC reports today that "Paedophiles are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create and sell life-like child sexual abuse material, the BBC has found.

Some are accessing the images by paying subscriptions to accounts on mainstream content-sharing sites such as Patreon.

Patreon said it had a "zero tolerance" policy about such imagery on its site.

The National Police Chief's Council said it was "outrageous" that some platforms were making "huge profits" but not taking "moral responsibility".

And GCHQ, the government's intelligence, security and cyber agency, has responded to the report, saying: "Child sexual abuse offenders adopt all technologies and some believe the future of child sexual abuse material lies in AI-generated content."

The makers of the abuse images are using AI software called Stable Diffusion, which was intended to generate images for use in art or graphic design.

The BBC has found it is being used to create life-like images of child sexual abuse, including of the rape of babies and toddlers and the UK police online child abuse investigation teams say they are already encountering such content. You could more about this issue here.

Today, the BBC also reports that "Apple has criticized powers in the Online Safety Bill that could be used to force encrypted messaging tools like iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal to scan messages for child abuse material.

Its intervention comes as 80 organisations and tech experts have written to Technology Minister Chloe Smith urging a rethink on the powers.

Apple told the BBC the bill should be amended to protect encryption. The government says companies must prevent child abuse on their platforms.

Police, the government and some high-profile child protection charities maintain the tech - used in apps such as WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage - prevents law enforcement and the firms themselves from identifying the sharing of child sexual abuse material.

But in a statement Apple said: "End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats.

"It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches. The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk.

"Apple urges the government to amend the bill to protect strong end-to-end encryption for the benefit of all." For more, read the full BBC report.

It's absolutely amazing that Apple was one of the strongest advocates supporting scanning of images for child pornography in iMessages and then under pressure took a different moral stance. This issue could become a huge one should the EU decide to join in on this battle against big tech. Apple and other tech companies will not want to lose access to the European market over this issue. So only time will tell is this remains a U.K.-only issue.