Apple wins dismissal in iCloud CSAM lawsuit

Apple has defeated a proposed class-action lawsuit that accused the company of failing to stop child sexual abuse material from being stored and shared through iCloud, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Judge Noël Wise in San Jose, California, dismissed the case with prejudice in a ruling late Monday, meaning it cannot be refiled. The lawsuit, filed in 2024, argued that Apple failed to act to prevent images of the plaintiffs' abuse as children from circulating on iCloud.

The two survivors, identified under the pseudonyms Amy and Jessica, alleged that Apple knowingly chose not to use available tools to detect and report known CSAM. The complaint specifically cited Apple’s decision to abandon NeuralHash, a system announced in 2021 that would have matched images uploaded to iCloud against databases of previously identified abuse material.

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Amy and Jessica sought to bring the case on behalf of thousands of other survivors. Later court filings estimated the proposed class at 2,680 people and put potential compensatory damages at as much as $32.8 billion, Reuters said.

“Class treatment would minimize the trauma that Class members would experience because of litigating their claims individually, and further promotes the remedial purposes of the federal statutes under which the claims are brought.”

Judge Wise agreed with Apple’s argument that the claims were barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 federal law that generally shields online services from liability for content created by users. Reuters said Wise found that the suit sought to hold Apple responsible for failing to remove or block user-created content, placing it within Section 230's scope.

Despite the dismissal, James Marsh, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Reuters they are considering an appeal and evaluating whether other legal claims may still be possible.