Yes, in the sense that you have a legal doctor-patient privilege that binds what they can share with whom. There's not really an Apple cloud user privilege.
No, in the sense that your therapist is still required to report you to the police in various situations where you pose an immediate threat to yourself or others, etc.
A better analogy is a storage locker. AFAIK police need a warrant to search "your" storage locker even though it's on someone else's property. I don't see why data in the cloud should be any different. Pre-emptively scanning everyone's data is equivalent to officers rummaging through all the storage lockers in a facility "just in case" they find something illegal.
> No, in the sense that your therapist is still required to report you to the police in various situations where you pose an immediate threat to yourself or others, etc.
And therapists are legally mandated to report you if you told them you viewed or possessed CSAM.
They are mandated to report child abuse. It is the same story with doctors, if an abusive parent brings in a child for care they learn never to give the kid healthcare again after the doctor reports it. It is rooted in good intentions but the effect is it means abused children never get to see doctors, therapists, get a half-ass minimal homeschool instead of going to school, etc so that mandated reporters never enter the picture.
Reporting abuse the client was involved in has a compelling reason. That's different from hearing their client saw a picture of the abuse of a total stranger.
> That's different from hearing their client saw a picture of the abuse of a total stranger.
I get it, actually. It's totally possible the picture in question was not known to authorities prior. That's called due diligence to look into it.
Adults not looking into things or following up on things are how the system fails children if you read some accounts of people who were abused by their guardians. Horrifying stuff.
> No matter how or why? That seems like a terrible mandate.
Honestly shocked that anyone would even say this, but even giving you the benefit of the doubt here -- the one case where I could imagine this might not happen would be if you're a police officer investigating such cases. But they also have their own therapists dedicated/trained in police-specific issues.
I think you're demonstrating incredibly poor judgment here. CSAM is a crime with real victims. Even if your patient came across it innocently, someone is out there intentionally distributing it and that needs to be investigated.
> Across most states, viewing CSEM alone is generally not a mandated-reporting trigger; reporting becomes obligatory when disclosures involve an identifiable child being abused or used to produce material.
> California’s CANRA imposes a distinct duty to report electronic access (download/stream) with identifying patient information, upheld against privacy challenges based on compelling state interest.
No, in the sense that your therapist is still required to report you to the police in various situations where you pose an immediate threat to yourself or others, etc.