It does seem overwhelmingly likely to me that Apple intended to clear a path to E2EE of iCloud Photos with this, however, I'm utterly stumped why they haven't made any announcement nor even suggested it as a motivation. It is clearly their best possible rationale for moving the perceptual hashing from cloud to device, and many people would say, "oh, well, I guess I understand that trade off, then." But without that announcement, this looks pointless on top of invasive. And after more than a week of punishing press, it seems even more unbelievable.

> It does seem overwhelmingly likely to me that Apple intended to clear a path to E2EE

Some people say this, but the government doesn't just care about CSAM. They care about terrorism, human and drug trafficking, organized crime, gangs, fraud etc.

Unless Apple plans on expanding their system to detect those other things as well, I don't think CSAM detection alone is indicative of a clear path to E2EE. In fact, I see no evidence at all that indicates their intention of this project is to implement E2EE.

> Apple intended to clear a path to E2EE of iCloud Photos with this

Here’s one problem with that idea: They would have to support scanning on the device for everything they are able to scan in the cloud today, in every country. Without changes, their current scanner would not do the trick (unless, of course, they’re lying about how it works).

I dont think that he is talking about scanning in the cloud which we know that Google is already doing for profit.... he is talking about scanning on your phone from a remote server which is WORST.