Apple documentation said photos stored in iCloud. Synced photos are stored in iCloud. And they told people to turn off iCloud Photos to avoid it. Not not share.

Backups are also stored in iCloud, but Apple made it clear that it was only considering scans of photos that you uploaded to iCloud Photos (since that content is publicly accessible through the web).

Scanning device backups was not even on the table, unlike at Google, where they have been scanning device content for years now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

I explained already sharing is part not all of iCloud Photos.

Backups entered the discussion because you claimed iCloud meant backups not photos. And Apple has access to device backups even when they do not exercise it without E2EE.

The article said backed up to Google Photos. And the photos were sent over Gmail and chat. It is not clear device backups were involved or even existed. And device content is a misleading thing to call backups in a discussion about scanning on device.