Modern digital content identification techniques are dividing federal appeals courts on whether the Fourth Amendment’s private-search exception applies when law enforcement probes for illegal content in unopened online files received from private third parties.
At issue is “hash matching,” a technology companies use to detect when users upload child sex abuse materials, or CSAM, by converting images and videos into unique digital fingerprints that are compared to previously identified materials.
In March, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held in United States v. Lowers that local Virginia police violated the Fourth Amendment when they accessed certain files ...
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