US judge dismisses Apple CSAM lawsuit, highlighting EU dilemma

A US federal judge has permanently dismissed a proposed class action accusing Apple of failing to stop child sexual abuse imagery from circulating via iCloud. Judge Noël Wise ruled on Monday that the claims fell under the liability shield of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents online services from being treated as the publishers of user-generated content. The dismissal is with prejudice, barring the 2,680 plaintiffs from refiling the case.

The lawsuit initially sought $1.2bn in damages before later demanding up to $32.8bn alongside a court order forcing Apple to detect and block the material. The case centred on Apple's aborted NeuralHash system, a tool announced in 2021 that would have scanned iCloud Photos against databases of known abuse imagery. Apple shelved the programme in December 2022 following warnings from privacy groups that such scanning infrastructure could be expanded for broader surveillance.

The ruling eliminates a massive theoretical liability for Apple, providing certainty to investors regarding the company's legal exposure over content moderation choices. Judge Wise found that no federal law requires Apple to build detection tools, writing that “lawmakers can fix this problem that is contributing to the exploitation of children. This Court cannot.” By confirming that Section 230 protects a platform's decision not to scan, the court has limited a major vector of litigation risk for the tech sector.

The question Judge Wise handed back to legislators mirrors the exact dilemma currently paralysing Brussels. Europe’s Child Sexual Abuse Regulation has been stuck in negotiations for four years, primarily over whether platforms can be legally compelled to scan private messages. Hillary Nappi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the US decision “only adds urgency to the pending legislative efforts to ensure technology companies can be held accountable for the harm caused by their design choices.”

Apple has maintained that it addresses abuse material through less invasive tools, such as its Communication Safety feature in Messages, arguing that mass scanning compromises user security. The company reported just 267 instances of child abuse imagery to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023, compared to 1.47 million by Google and over 30.6 million by Meta. While this federal case is closed, Apple still faces a separate lawsuit filed by West Virginia’s attorney general and plaintiffs are considering an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.