Apple wins court case over harmful images stored on iCloud

A US judge in San Jose, California, dismissed a lawsuit against Apple on July 13, ruling that a federal law protects the company from being held responsible for harmful content that users store on its iCloud platform. The case was brought by two women, identified by the fake names Amy and Jessica, who said that images of their abuse as children were being stored and shared on iCloud. The judge agreed with Apple's argument that it could not be sued for content created by its users.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of 2,680 people with similar complaints. They estimated that the total damages could be as high as $32.8 billion. Along with money, the plaintiffs also asked the court to order Apple to make changes to how iCloud works.

US District Judge Noel Wise said the case fell under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law passed in 1996. That law gives online companies broad protection from lawsuits related to content that their users create or share. Because of this law, the judge said Apple could not be forced to find and remove such images.

Judge Wise also noted that no federal law requires Apple to use technology to search for and report child sexual abuse material on its platform. She wrote that lawmakers, not courts, are the ones who need to solve this problem. She dismissed the case 'with prejudice,' which means the same lawsuit cannot be filed again.

Amy and Jessica first sued Apple in 2024. They claimed that Apple knew about the problem but chose not to use tools that could detect harmful images. Back in 2021, Apple announced a program called NeuralHash that was designed to find these images, but by 2022 the company said it would no longer use it.

Around the same time, Apple added a strong form of data protection called end-to-end encryption to iCloud. This made it nearly impossible for Apple or law enforcement to look inside users' stored data, even to find illegal images. Apple said it stopped using NeuralHash to protect its users' privacy and security, and that it has worked hard to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material in other ways.

The lawyer for Amy and Jessica, James Marsh, said they plan to appeal the decision and look into other possible legal options. While they disagree with the judge's ruling on the law, Marsh said they do agree that Congress should do more to protect children online. He pointed to what he called 'skyrocketing harms from online exploitation.'

Apple has not yet commented on the ruling. The company is also facing a separate but similar lawsuit from the attorney general of West Virginia. That state says its case is the first of its kind brought by a government agency over child sexual abuse material on Apple's cloud storage platform.