Upon reviewing TFA it appears this is intended for iCloud users as a privacy-focused alternative to CSAM-scanning the images you upload to iCloud on-server. Rat

Upon reviewing TFA it appears this is intended for iCloud users as a privacy-focused alternative to CSAM-scanning the images you upload to iCloud on-server. Rather than leaving images unencrypted on-server so thay they can be checked, the images are checked on your own device prior to upload (to dramatically simplify it). The sell here is that CSAM checking is then done without revealing the image to Apple...unless it's CSAM, and there's enough of it. iCloud was already scanning for CSAM, this time though they do it without seeing what you upload to the server. This is essentially encryption with a backdoor, and the chief objection is basically the same as the Clipper chip/Skipjack. There are privacy issues with the idea of backdoored encryption, as the EFF pointed out. To counter misinformation that is being spread, it's not a little AI cop doing blanket scans on your image library and app caches - it is expressly intended as a part of iCloud CSAM detection. But at the same time it seems trivial for Apple to expand it to that someday, since they just deployed a method capable of doing so trivially. Conceivably they can make the API so that it does a scan when an image is saved to disk. This is not currently what will be done but whether or not they will is anyone's guess.