MANILA, Philippines – Google’s hashing and image tagging technology provided a tip to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that allowed police to arrest a man in Houston, Texas, on child pornography charges. Google originally found the images in the man’s email account after using technology that automatically scanned emails for copies of known child pornography images.

The man, identified by KHOU Channel 11 News in Houston as John Skillern, is a registered sex offender. According to the report, Skillern was trying to hide more recent activity by emailing a friend 3 explicit pictures of a young girl.

Google’s tip – which was determined by the automated scan – allowed investigators to get a warrant, where they found more child pornography in Skillern’s cellular phone and tablet. Texts and emails about his sexual interest in children were also uncovered.

The report also noted that Skillern was recording the activities of children at the Denny’s restaurant he worked at.

Business Insider adds that, while this does appear to be a seeming breach of trust of user privacy, Google already updated its terms of service to warn people regarding the automatic analysis of emails.

The system – explained in part by Jacqueline Fuller, director of Google Giving – noted that with regard to the NCMEC’s cyber tipline, its Child Victim Identification Program “reviewed 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child sexual abuse.”

Fuller further explained that the company has been using hashing technology since 2008 “to tag known child sexual abuse images allowing us to identify duplicate images which may exist elsewhere,” adding that Google feels there are types of information “that shouldn’t be created or found.”

“We can do a lot to ensure it’s not available online – and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted,” Fuller’s statement said. – Rappler.com