DeepSec 2024 Talk: Insights on Client-Side Scanning and Alternatives in the Fight Against Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation – Carolyn Guthoff
Content Warning: This talk may include mention of child sexual abuse and exploitation. In this talk, we want to summarize our research into Client-Side Scanning (CSS) and follow-up work on safety in end-to-end encrypted messaging concerning sexual risks. Client-Side Scanning (CSS) is discussed as a potential solution to contain the dissemination of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). A significant challenge associated with this debate is that stakeholders have different interpretations of the capabilities and frontiers of the concept and its varying implementations. In the current work, we explore stakeholders’ understandings of the technology and the expectations and potential implications in the context of CSAM by conducting and analyzing 28 semi-structured interviews with a diverse sample of experts. We identified mental models of CSS and the expected challenges. Our results show the CSS is often