[ianmiers]

Factually, not yet. That will change and I will explain how in a moment. But first there's a major difference between doing it on device vs in the cloud. It changes how we think about privacy and builds a capability to scan phones (not particularly limited to iCloud) into the device. That's a capability no Western tech company could ever be forced to build for more illicit usages, but now it exists.

Second, Apple almost assuredly will encrypt iCloud after this. So now we have the precedent of scanning encrypted messages. And that will then feed legislation that congress has been attempting to pass for years to kill any right to meaningful end to end encryption for messaging. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/03/06/earn-it-...