Overview
- Attorney General JB McCuskey filed the consumer-protection case in Mason County Circuit Court, citing a 2020 Apple text calling iCloud “the greatest platform for distributing child porn,” and describing the suit as the first of its kind by a government agency.
- The complaint alleges Apple prioritized privacy branding and business interests over child safety and failed to proactively detect abusive material across iOS and iCloud.
- West Virginia seeks statutory and punitive damages plus injunctive relief requiring effective detection tools and safer product designs.
- The state highlights 2023 reporting to NCMEC as evidence of gaps, noting Apple filed 267 reports compared with 1.47 million by Google and 30.6 million by Meta.
- Apple says protecting children and user privacy is central to its products and points to features like Communication Safety, as the suit references Apple’s scrapped 2021 NeuralHash plan and parallels a 2024 survivor lawsuit Apple moved to dismiss under Section 230.