Like Google, Microsoft tips off police on child porn
Google isn’t alone in its scanning for child porn – Microsoft is also keeping its cyber-eyes peeled.
The BBC reports that a tip-off from Microsoft has led to the arrest of a man in Pennsylvania who has been charged with receiving and sharing child abuse images.
Microsoft informed the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the man had child pornography in his OneDrive cloud storage account, and was later detected trying to send two illegal pictures through Microsoft’s Live.com email system.
In the US, Microsoft’s terms and conditions state that the company has the right to use “automated technologies to detect child pornography or abusive behavior that might harm the system, our customers, or others”.
Microsoft detected the images through the use of PhotoDNA, technology it developed to identify images and inform law enforcement without requiring staff to look at the offending files.
The same technology is used by a variety of companies, including Facebook and Twitter.
The arrest comes just days after news of Google’s own tip-off to police, resulting in a 41-year-old restaurant worker being placed in custody for possessing child pornography.
