Since you presumably don’t trust Apple to scan your photos, it sounds like Apple might not be for you, then. Who will you move to?

Motte and Bailey much?

"Well you can turn it off" to "Well, but then you just don't trust Apple".

Clearly these are users who did trust Apple. Apple betrayed their trust. Given that Apple bulk handed over iCloud data to China, I don't really believe their pinky promise that they are, by policy only, going to resist government use of this tech. They can cave to government cases _and_ the government can certainly force them to.

The point is that turning it off resolves the issue, but if someone refuses to turn it off because they want to use iCloud there’s clearly a contradiction.

Therefore you must trust Apple. So if you still have issues then you don’t trust Apple.

In the past I trusted Apple to resist government efforts to spy on me to the best the law allowed. Now they are innovating ways to help a government spy literally live in my pocket.

Trust is fragile and Apple has taken what in the past I believed it understood to be a strategic advantage and stomped it into little pieces.