Facebook’s WhatsApp Takes Aim At Apple Over Child Safety Software Plan

Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp messaging unit blasted Apple Inc.’s plan to monitor sexually exploitative images of children on iPhones as bad for privacy, opening a new front in the battle between two of the world’s biggest tech companies.

“This approach introduces something very concerning into the world,” Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, said Friday. “We will not adopt it at WhatsApp.”

Apple a day earlier said it planned to release an update for U.S. users later this year designed to identify and report collections of sexually exploitative images of children, as part of a series of changes it is preparing for the iPhone to protect children from sexual predators.

WhatsApp’s position deepens the battle between Facebook and Apple about data. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has long bemoaned what he sees as too much power Apple has over the social-media giant’s business.

Apple has made the protection of user information on the iPhones and some other devices a key part of its pitch to consumers and taken shots at Facebook for its data-collection practices.

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