Just Like Google, Microsoft Is Also Scanning Outlook And OneDrive For Explicit Child Abuse Images

Recently, a Houston man has been arrested by Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce after Google sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying that the man had explicit images of a child in his Gmail account. While this is a good news, it created lots of discussions on internet privacy. It is not just Google, even Microsoft scans your Outlook.com and OneDrive accounts for explicit child abuse images.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has long worked to advance innovations and strong partnerships to combat child exploitation. In 2009, Microsoft, working with digital imaging expert Dr. Hany Farid of Dartmouth College, developed PhotoDNA and freely licensed it to NCMEC for use in a program to disrupt the online distribution of the worst known images of child pornography known to NCMEC.

Google and Microsoft are now working together with NCMEC to combat child pornography on the web. You can read more on it here. In fact, even Facebook has joined Microsoft in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s PhotoDNA program to combat child pornography.

Just like how Google helped Houston Metro executives, Microsoft last week filed a complaint against a Pennsylvania man
Tyler James Hoffman for his alleged possession and distribution of child pornography using OneDrive. He was later arrested by state police and booked into the Monroe County Correctional Facility.

As per the complaint, Microsoft twice detected the accused uploading illicit images to his OneDrive account earlier this year. During questioning, Hoffman admitted that he used a Microsoft live.com e-mail address for receiving and trading child porn via his mobile device and he uploaded illicit images to OneDrive.

You can read the police complaint below.

NSFW:

via: Smoking Gun