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Google Brought Cops Down on Dad Who Took Medical Pics of Naked Son: NYT

A police investigation was opened, with the company nixing years’ worth of the man’s contacts, emails, and photos.

A stay-at-home dad in California who took photos of his sick toddler’s genitals for the doctor was unwittingly caught by Google’s child sexual abuse filters, kickstarting a nightmarish chain reaction that ended in a police investigation, according to The New York Times. The father, identified only as Mark, lost nearly a decade of his digital life after Google flagged the photos as “harmful content.” The company disabled his account—depriving him of his contacts, emails, photos, and Google Fi phone plan—and refused to reverse their decision after he filed an appeal. Nearly 10 months later, Mark was alerted that the San Francisco Police Department had concluded an investigation on him. Though an officer had ultimately determined no crime had occurred, he had been unable to contact Mark, whose original phone number and email address were still incapacitated. “We do have a horrible problem,” said Dr. Suzanne Haney, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. “Unfortunately, it got tied up with parents trying to do right by their kids.”