> "Still, I don't want my phone to even be capable of doing that," Not capable of what, running software? Communicating with a HTTPS endpoint? Having library c

> "Still, I don't want my phone to even be capable of doing that," Not capable of what, running software? Communicating with a HTTPS endpoint? Having library code? Running stuff in the manufacturer's interest rather than your interest? All those things happen already in some form or other, and there isn't a cutoff to make the phone incapable of it without hobbling the phone. > "That's one big step closer to the described full-private scanning (and just a flag flip away)." iPhone already does scan offline private photos for face and object recognition purposes. And run big blobs of unknown Apple-provided code. It's only your trust in Apple that makes you think it doesn't report anything back now - and nothing at all stopping them from being arm twisted by the authorities to make that scan for something the government dislikes and report on it, as you say a flag flip away. It already does send your location and your surrounding WiFi signals and your voice when you use Siri unless you toggle the privacy settings, and that all came in quietly on regular updates. Apple walked a fairly narrow line when they announced it, and when they publicly stated that if the authorities asked them to extend the scope of the scanning that they would refuse. I don't know why they chose to do it on the endpoints rather than in the cloud, but acting like doing it on the cloud would give you any level of protection from them putting intrusive software on your phone is not reality. (Same with Google, Samsung, et al).