Apple caused a firestorm of controversy over its discreet announcement that it planned to scan all users’ photos for child abuse imagery. Almost a month later, it has delayed those plans. “Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers, and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features,” the company said in an update. The company had planned to scan both iCloud photos and encrypted messages for sexually explicit content, but the move drew flack from privacy advocates over concerns the system could be fooled.

Matthew Green, a cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University who had criticized the move, told the Associated Press: “You need to build support before you launch something like this. This was a big escalation from scanning almost nothing to scanning private files.”