There is an increasing push by Microsoft to get computer users to store all of their content on OneDrive. Examples being that the default location for Office documents in OneDrive, that the Known Folders feature that protects your device from ransomware will also move your content online and that Microsoft’s apps on other platforms also default to online storage.
Microsoft’s cloud is however not your hard drive, and it comes with terms and conditions of use, including what kind of content you can store there, and the requirement and agreement that Microsoft can check your content for legality.
Such checks are performed regularly, and Local10 News reports on a recent success story, where Microsoft (via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) alerted South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children that a Davie man has uploaded three images depicting child pornography on a OneDrive cloud storage account.
During a statement to police, Florida man Jario Antonio Cabrera, 27, admitted the offense, saying he had viewed the images and videos on the portable hard drive, where the child pornography was stored, at least five times. He did not say how the images were uploaded to the OneDrive.
Cabrera was charged with three counts of possession of photographs/film of a child performing a sexual act and one count of computer pornography and is currently detained in Broward County's main jail.
Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, with Microsoft developing its PhotoDNA system to find images of exploitation automatically in online storage networks.
While some may argue that the privacy of computer users are being increasingly eroded, and of the risk of false positives ruining lives, it would be difficult to place these concerns above the protection of children.
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