I think this has been developed by Apple attempting to balance a complex issue: E.g. Government request asking them to report with certainty that their cloud st

I think this has been developed by Apple attempting to balance a complex issue: E.g. Government request asking them to report with certainty that their cloud storage is not used for illegal activity (CP in this particular case but each country/govt may end up with different requirements). Apple thought they found a clever way to satisfy a government request of "Can you guarantee your storage is not used to house XYZ". Apple then continues to be able to advertise 'privacy' while retaining E2E encryption (or at least have E2E across all services eventually). What they didn't forsee is the potential slippery slope backlash that the IT community has become concerned about. The scanning feature could be used in more nefarious ways (if modified in future). For example. The hash checking could be altered to check and hash against each photo metadata field instead of the photo itself. Now we can find who took photos in a particular location at a particular point in history while still retaining E2E! Would it go that far? Or can we trust Apple to stop moving the line in the sand?