They can see the image - why would they import a random image into their library from someone they don’t know?

WhatsApp has a really weird default behavior: it imports all images you're sent into your photo library.

This is a smart thing to disable, even outside this recent discussion of CSAM.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/how-to-stop-saving-whatsapp...

In that scenario this attack is unnecessary. Someone could just send you legitimate child pornography and then immediately tell the authorities that you possess said things.

Yup! It's a legitimately crazy default.

Edit: Though, to be fair, the specific hash-collision scenario would be that someone could send you something that doesn't look like CSAM and so you wouldn't reflexively delete it.

If it doesn’t look like it wouldn’t a human reviewer disregard it once it gets to that point?

Personally I don’t really see the issue.

We don't know how the human review is going to work. Countries with fewer resources are going to find it easier to just arrest/detain any suspects, instead of spending time and money on figuring out which reports are true.

All you have to be is accused of CP for your life to be destroyed. It doesn't matter if you did it or not.

What you’re describing is possible even if you didn’t receive anything.

If the government wants to get you they don’t need this Apple scanning tech, or anything at all really

Yeah, you'd need a very specific set of processes for it to really be a problem.

Whatsapp imports received images into camera roll by default, and icloud sync is on by default. So you just need to get into a WA group the victim is a member of, and have the victim use default settings.

Auto import could be turned on?