The system isn't entirely on-device, but relies on uploading data to Apple's servers. Hence, why I said that it's not an arbitrary limitation that it only scans

The system isn't entirely on-device, but relies on uploading data to Apple's servers. Hence, why I said that it's not an arbitrary limitation that it only scans photos uploaded to iCloud. The system literally has to upload enough images with triggering "safety vouchers" to Apple to pass the reporting threshold, and critical parts of that calculation are happening on the server side. I think what you're arguing is that Apple could still change what's being scanned for, and, well, yes: but that doesn't really affect my original point, which is that this is a policy/legal issue. If you assume governments are bad actors, then yes, they could pressure Apple to change this technology to scan for other things -- but if this technology didn't exist, they could just as easily pressure Apple to do it all on the servers. I think a lot of the anger comes from they shouldn't be able to do any part of this work on my device, and emotionally, I get that -- but technologically, it's hard for me not to shake the impression that "what amount happens on device vs. what amount happens on server" is a form of bikeshedding.