A New York Times report filed yesterday states that Apple is embroiled in a class action lawsuit for failing to properly find and delete child sexual abuse (CSA M) material from iCloud. An anonymous 27-year-old woman filed the lawsuit in the Northern District Court of California on Saturday (the 7^th), and there is a possibility that 2,680 potential victims will join the lawsuit later.

If Apple is found liable in the trial, the total damages could exceed $1.2 billion (approximately 1.7 trillion won) considering additional lawsuits from potential victims.

The woman who filed the lawsuit stated that she was sexually abused by a relative when she was young, and that the perpetrator shared the victim's photos with others.

The photos were also stored in Apple's iCloud and shared with many people, and she complained that she suffered trauma because law enforcement notified her of the fact whenever the people involved were indicted for possession of child abuse photos.

The victims claim that the damages expanded when Apple abandoned the function it developed to automatically find and monitor child sexual abuse material on iPhones and other devices.

In fact, Apple developed a related function, but gave up introducing the function in 2021 due to controversy over privacy violations.

Those who filed this lawsuit claim, “If Apple had introduced the CSAM technology announced in 2021, the victims’ child sexual abuse videos and images would have been detected and removed,” and “Apple’s failure to do so is causing ongoing damage.”