Google AI flagged parents’ accounts for potential abuse over nude photos of their sick kids

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A concerned father says that after using his Android smartphone to take photos of an infection on his toddler’s groin, Google flagged the images as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to a report from The New York Times. The company closed his accounts and filed a report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and spurred a police investigation, highlighting the complications of trying to tell the difference between potential abuse and an innocent photo once it becomes part of a user’s digital library, whether on their personal device or in cloud storage.

Concerns about the consequences of blurring the lines for what should be considered private were aired last year when Apple announced its Child...

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