>Source? That is not true as far as I'm aware.

https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apple-scans-uploaded-co...

>What do you expect them to do with they receive a national security letter?

They can't do _anything_ with an NSL on your data because they don't have the encryption keys. Without this feature, they control the key. With this feature, you control the key and they only gain access when >N tokens cryptographically indicate hits on the CSIM database. Those have to come from _your_ device. And those tokens only give access to the data in question.

Everyone understands that Apple can do anything with unencrypted content, but now Apple can also identify encrypted content because they make the phone hash it before it's encrypted. Apple is essentially lying when they say this can only be used to identify child abuse material because it can clearly be used to identify whatever Apple tells it to identify. The system doesn't care if it's used to target whistleblowers or child abusers. Apple doesn't even need to know what content they are made to target. The government could just give them a hash and demand to know who has a file corresponding to it, with zero risk that an Apple employee will leak anything the government want to suppress.

There is no reason Apple can't give you E2E encryption without any backdoors or spying features. They should act on abuse when it's reported to them by someone who can give them the key, but otherwise not concern themselves with the content that's stored.