West Virginia’s lawsuit against Apple Inc., which alleges that the company’s business practices and product design decisions safeguard child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) from detection, has been remanded from federal to state court.
Federal law requires technology companies like Apple to report known CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Apple attempted to move the State's lawsuit out of West Virginia courts by invoking the federal officer removal statute, arguing that its reporting of child sexual abuse material to NCMEC made it a person "acting under" a federal officer. The federal court rejected that argument and remanded the case to state court, concluding that Apple's compliance with federal reporting requirements did not provide a basis for federal officer jurisdiction.
Notably, although Apple relied on its reporting to NCMEC as the foundation for removal, the State’s complaint alleges that Apple's CyberTipline reporting lagged dramatically behind other major technology companies. In 2023, Apple made just 267 such reports. By contrast, Google filed 1.47 million reports and Meta filed more than 30.6 million.
“The ruling ensures that this case will be decided where it belongs—in a West Virginia court applying West Virginia law. At its core, this case is about Apple's deliberate business and product-design decisions to prioritize profits over the safety of our children. Apple’s failure to deploy available detection technology is not a passive oversight — it is a choice. That is why we stepped up to take on this fight, and we will continue to do everything in our power to hold them accountable,” Attorney General JB McCuskey said.
The lawsuit, filed by the Attorney General’s Office in February, reveals that Apple, in its own internal communications, described itself as the “greatest platform for distributing child porn” — yet took no meaningful action to stop it. Rather than follow through on its public commitment to deploy child sexual abuse material detection technology, the complaint alleges that Apple abandoned those efforts and continued making product design decisions that facilitated the storage and distribution of child sexual abuse material while publicly portraying itself as a leader in child safety.
Apple has filed notice to appeal the remand order.
###