Google has long used automatic image scanning to fight online child exploitation, but it’s now clear that this monitoring applies to email, too. Houston police have arrested a registered sex offender after Google tipped them off to illegal photos of children in his Gmail account. The notice only led to a warrant at first, but it helped the cops discover locally stored images that they wouldn’t have found otherwise. Full Article
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“First, they came for the sex offenders…”
I’ve always said that sex offenders are the “canary in the mine” when it comes to civil liberties in a society…specifically, in getting the public to approve of an infringement of privacy liberties.
While I don’t have any sympathy for the person with the images per se, hopefully, there will be a vigorous defense in court. Otherwise, there WILL be more sympathy directed to lowering constitutional protections across the board.
So I guess this means that people who use email no longer have a “reasonable expectation of privacy?”