It would be easy to extend this to scan for 'wrongthink'.

Next logical steps would be to scan for: confidential government documents, piracy, sensitive items, porn in some countries, LGBT content in countries where it's illegal, etc... (and not just on icloud backed up files, everything)

This could come either via Apple selling this as a product or forced by governments...

Next it’s Covid misinformation

Then eventually they’re coming for your Bernie memes

Well the obvious response is that these systems don't have to be designed. Child abuse is a convenient red herring to expand surveillance capabilities. Anyone opposing the capability is branded a child molester. This is the oldest trick in the book.

I mean the capability to spy on your kid can easily be used to abuse them. Apple could very well end up making children's lives worse.

It seems the only way to opt-out is to get out of the Apple ecosystem.

https://www.golem.de/news/hamburg-polizei-nutzt-corona-konta...

https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bund...

That's the irony in this: This move arguably improves privacy by removing the requirement that images be decrypted on the server to run a check against the NCMEC database. While iCloud Photo Library is of course not E2E, in theory images should no longer have to be decrypted anywhere other than on the client under normal circumstances.

And yet – by moving the check to the client, something that was once a clear distinction has been blurred. I entirely understand (and share) the discomfort around what is essentially a surveillance technology now running on hardware I own rather than on a server I connect to, even if it's the exact same software doing the exact same thing.

Objectively, I see the advantage to Apple's client-side approach. Subjectively, I'm not so sure.

Google drive does not scan for child porn if the user uploads a user encrypted file. They literally can’t.

Personally, I don’t think E2EE photos is coming.

It’s a huge move, and a big change in the presumptions of how their platform works.

I’m heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem and it’ll take a years work to get off it.

I’m thinking of the prevailing principles of whatever I do best, and one of them is, excise integrated platforms as much as possible.

But most consumers will probably not care, and this road will get paved for miles to come.

That is good, but unless a system like this is fully open source and runs only signed code there really aren't many protections against abuse.

eg. Anyone with a "Feel the Bern" marketing material -> arrest them under suspicion of CSAM. Search their device and find them as dissidents.

This will be the statement they increase the scope the next time.

Hard to imagine that Tim Cook would have scanned Epsteins photos...