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Apple, iPhones, photos and child safety: What’s happening and should you be concerned?

The tech giant’s built new systems to fight child exploitation and abuse, but security advocates worry it could erode our privacy. Here’s why.

Apple’s long presented itself as a bastion of security, and as one of the only tech companies that truly cares about user privacy. But a new technology designed to help an iPhone, iPad or Mac computer detect child exploitation images and videos stored on those devices has ignited a fierce debate about the truth behind Apple’s promises.

On Aug. 5, Apple announced a new feature being built into the upcoming iOS 15, iPad OS 15, WatchOS 8 and MacOS Monterey software updates designed to detect if someone has child exploitation images or videos stored on their device. It’ll do this by converting images into unique bits of code, known as hashes, based on what they depict. The hashes are then checked against a database of known child exploitation content that’s managed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If a certain number of matches are found, Apple is then alerted and may further investigate.

Apple said it developed this system to protect people’s privacy, performing scans on the phone and only raising alarms if a certain number of matches are found. But privacy experts, who agree that fighting child exploitation is a good thing, worry that Apple’s moves open the door to wider uses that could, for example, put political dissidents and other innocent people in harm’s way.

«Even if you believe Apple won’t allow these tools to be misused there’s still a lot to be concerned about,» tweeted Matthew Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who’s worked on cryptographic technologies.

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Apple’s new feature, and the concern that’s sprung up around it, represent an important debate about the company’s commitment to privacy. Apple has long promised that its devices and software are designed to protect their users’ privacy. The company even dramatized that with an ad it hung just outside the convention hall of the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, which said «What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.»

«We at Apple believe privacy is a fundamental human right,» Apple CEO Tim Cook has often said.

Apple’s scanning technology is part of a trio of new features the company’s planning for this fall. Apple also is enabling its Siri voice assistant to offer links and resources to people it believes may be in a serious situation, such as a child in danger. Advocates had been asking for that type of feature for a while.

It also is adding a feature to its messages app to proactively protect children from explicit content, whether it’s in a green-bubble SMS conversation or blue-bubble iMessage encrypted chat. This new capability is specifically designed for devices registered under a child’s iCloud account and will warn if it detects an explicit image being sent or received. Like with Siri, the app will also offer links and resources if needed.

There’s a lot of nuance involved here, which is part of why Apple took the unusual step of releasing research papers, frequently asked questions and other information ahead of the planned launch.

Here’s everything you should know:

Why is Apple doing this now?

The tech giant said it’s been trying to find a way to help stop child exploitation for a while. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 65 million reports of material last year. Apple said that’s way up from the 401 reports 20 years ago.

«We also know that the 65 million files that were reported is only a small fraction of what is in circulation,» said Julie Cordua, head of Thorn, a nonprofit fighting child exploitation that supports Apple’s efforts. She added that US law requires tech companies to report exploitative material if they find it, but it does not compel them to search for it.

Other companies do actively search for such photos and videos. Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Google (and its YouTube subsidiary) all use various technologies to scan their systems for any potentially illegal uploads.

What makes Apple’s system unique is that it’s designed to scan our devices, rather than the information stored on the company’s servers.

The hash scanning system will only be applied to photos stored in iCloud Photo Library, which is a photo syncing system built into Apple devices. It won’t hash images and videos stored in the photos app of a phone, tablet or computer that isn’t using iCloud Photo Library. So, in a way, people can opt out if they choose not to use Apple’s iCloud photo syncing services.

Could this system be abused?

The question at hand isn’t whether Apple should do what it can to fight child exploitation. It’s whether Apple should use this method.

The slippery slope concern privacy experts have raised is whether Apple’s tools could be twisted into surveillance technology against dissidents. Imagine if the Chinese government were able to somehow secretly add data corresponding to the famously suppressed Tank Man photo from the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square to Apple’s child exploitation content system.

Apple said it designed features to keep that from happening. The system doesn’t scan photos, for example — it checks for matches between hash codes. The hash database is also stored on the phone, not a database sitting on the internet. Apple also noted that because the scans happen on the device, security researchers can audit the way it works more easily.

Is Apple rummaging through my photos?

We’ve all seen some version of it: The baby in the bathtub photo. My parents had some of me, I have some of my kids, and it was even a running gag on the 2017 Dreamworks animated comedy The Boss Baby.

Apple says those images shouldn’t trip up its system. Because Apple’s system converts our photos to these hash codes, and then checks them against a known database of child exploitation videos and photos, the company isn’t actually scanning our stuff. The company said the likelihood of a false positive is less than one in 1 trillion per year.

«In addition, any time an account is flagged by the system, Apple conducts human review before making a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,» Apple wrote on its site. «As a result, system errors or attacks will not result in innocent people being reported to NCMEC.»

Is Apple reading my texts?

Apple isn’t applying its hashing technology to our text messages. That, effectively, is a separate system. Instead, with text messages, Apple is only alerting a user who’s marked as a child in their iCloud account about when they’re about to send or receive an explicit image. The child can still view the image, and if they do a parent will be alerted.

«The feature is designed so that Apple does not get access to the messages,» Apple said.

What does Apple say?

Apple maintains that its system is built with privacy in mind, with safeguards to keep Apple from knowing the contents of our photo libraries and to minimize the risk of misuse.

«At Apple, our goal is to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives — while helping them stay safe,» Apple said in a statement. «We want to protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material.»

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 10, #229

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 229, for Saturday, May 10.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

I always start Connections: Sports Edition by scanning for clues I know that can’t fit into too many categories. Today, I spotted names of particular places, and was off to the races with the green group. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Players sometimes disagree.

Green group hint: Also Lumen, or U.S. Bank.

Blue group hint: Academic sports organizations.

Purple group hint: Tennessee signal-callers.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Things an umpire calls.

Green group: NFL stadiums.

Blue group: First words of college conferences.

Purple group: QBs drafted by the Titans.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is things an umpire calls. The four answers are ball, out, safe and strike.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is NFL stadiums. The four answers are Allegiant, Gillette, Lambeau and Soldier.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is first words of college conferences. The four answers are American, Atlantic, Big and Southeastern.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is QBs drafted by the Titans. The four answers are Levis, Locker, Mariota and Ward.

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Technologies

GoldenEye 007, Tamagotchi, Quake Blast Into Video Game Hall of Fame For 2025

One revolutionized first-person shooters on consoles, another taught us how to care for a virtual pet, but they all deserve a spot in history.

If you grew up blasting aliens at the arcade, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with at least one of this year’s Video Game Hall of Fame inductees. The World Video Game Hall of Fame announced its 2025 class this week, celebrating four games that helped define an era: GoldenEye 007, Tamagotchi, Quake and Defender. These titles were selected for their cultural influence, staying power and contributions to the evolution of gaming. 

From a pioneering multiplayer shooter (GoldenEye 007) to the game that sparked the virtual pet craze (Tamagotchi), these titles have an influence that reaches beyond the gaming industry. The Hall of Fame, which is housed at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, recognizes games that shaped the gaming industry and permeated pop culture.

This year’s inductees join a roster of classics, including Tetris, Pac-Man, Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda, cementing their place in gaming history.

«This quartet of games represent leaps in technology and how people played when they arrived in the 1980s and 1990s,» CNET senior reporter and video games expert David Lumb says. «With respect to the other nominees, these four earned their spots in the Hall of Fame, each being so popular that they were practically inescapable in their day. First-person shooters, side-scrollers, couch co-op shooters and digital pocket pals — all of these are iconic entries in video gaming history.»

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

GoldenEye 007 revolutionized first-person shooters on consoles, which were largely seen as a PC genre, dominated by games
like Doom and Quake. Its use of four-player split-screen multiplayer mode was legendary, cementing local multiplayer as a staple of console gaming. The video game, based on the James Bond film, became the third best-selling title for the Nintendo 64, trailing only Super Mario 64 and Mario.

Tamagotchi (1996)

Tamagotchi introduced the world to virtual pet care, blurring the line between gaming and real life. The keychain-sized device let players feed, clean and care for a digital pet, turning everyday moments into interactive gameplay. It became a global craze, especially among girls and younger kids, a demographic often overlooked by game developers in the ’90s.

Defender (1981)

Defender challenged players with its intense gameplay and complex controls, setting a new standard for arcade difficulty. It pioneered the side-scrolling shooter while introducing complex, multi-button controls, including thrust, reverse, fire, smart bomb and hyperspace, making it one of the most demanding and skill-based arcade games of its era. It really helped separate casual players from hardcore gamers.

Quake (1996)

Quake raised the bar for 3D gaming with its fully real-time 3D graphics and gritty, atmospheric design. It didn’t just change how games looked, it changed how we played, thanks to its groundbreaking online multiplayer. On top of that, its modding tools helped kickstart a vibrant community, letting players create everything from new levels to entirely new games.

These four titles were selected from a list of 12 finalists, which included notable games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger and NBA 2K. Since its inception in 2015, the Hall of Fame has recognized nearly half 50 games that have shaped the gaming landscape.

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Technologies

Tariff Tracker: We’re Watching Prices for 11 Products You Might Need to Buy

Tariffs got you concerned about the future? We’re here to show you how President Trump’s new import taxes are affecting the prices of popular products like iPhones, video games and coffee.

President Donald Trump’s extensive new tariffs are expected to have huge, widespread effects on prices in the US, pushing them upward for popular products. Recently, companies like Microsoft, Mattel and Canon announced or warned of price increases in the near future and cast doubt on returning manufacturing to the US. Meanwhile, Trump touted a trade deal with the United Kingdom on Thursday, but the actual content of that agreement was minimal and not likely to have a significant impact.

That’s a lot of bad news and uncertain solutions to take in. If all that noise and worry has you unsure about the costs you’ll face in the near future, we’re here to lend you a hand.

It may not be long before other products become more expensive — assuming they’re still available for purchase at all. The last Chinese imports unaffected by new tariffs arrived in US ports last week, but fewer new shipments are expected in the coming weeks, with reports of empty US ports causing grave concerns about empty shelves in the near future.

Since Trump’s April 9 announcement of steep tariffs against nearly every country, experts have expressed concerns about what they will mean for prices for average, everyday consumers. Tariffs are essentially a tax on imports, paid by the companies importing products. Those additional costs, in one way or another, will most likely be passed down to you, the person trying to buy a new phone, laptop or even your daily coffee. So we’ve decided to try and keep track.

On this page, we’ll be tracking the real impacts of tariffs on 11 specific products and how their prices evolve over the course of 2025. Mostly, they’re electronics and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs. We’ll also track a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get experts tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering for each year: the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like 3D printer filament or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes given its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

In April, Apple flew bulk shipments of iPhones into the US to get a stockpile here ahead of tariffs kicking in. In recent weeks, reports have indicated that the company is working on moving all manufacturing of US-bound iPhones out of China to India to evade the worst of Trump’s tariff agenda. However, it’s also been reported that the iPhone 19, planned for release in 2027, will need to stay in China, because of the level of complexity planned for its design, tied to the iPhone line’s 20th anniversary.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The DuraCell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if for any given household, they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean brand so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories were also affected, and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. While the AirPods Pro 2 have hovered steadily around $200 on Amazon in 2025, they have been on sale for around $170 since the start of May.

Overture PLA 3D printer filament

As 3D printers continue to grow in popularity, more owners will need to replenish the filament that the machines use to make things. This material is just as susceptible to tariffs as the printers themselves but consumers will most certainly be buying it more often than they buy a new machine.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers. 

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts, but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28 oz. bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.» 

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

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