[GeekyBear]

>Do you really think they would go to all this trouble and then say oh you don't want to get scanned? Just turn off iCloud photos.

They have literally said exactly that.

>Q: So if iCloud Photos is disabled, the system does not work, which is the public language in the FAQ. I just wanted to ask specifically, when you disable iCloud Photos, does this system continue to create hashes of your photos on device, or is it completely inactive at that point?

A: If users are not using iCloud Photos, NeuralHash will not run

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/10/interview-apples-head-of-p...

[post_break]

If you fundamentally believe that Apple would go to all this trouble, create hashes, machine learning, all the code required, all the work with the third party, just to tell the world including those they hope to catch they can disable it by simply turning off iCloud photos, then there really isn’t much left to discuss.

[GeekyBear]

If you choose to believe conspiracy theories instead of the truth, there really isn't much to discuss.

Apple has merely developed a way to scan the contents of their cloud in a way that keeps the data about false positives off their servers until they are reasonably sure there is an issue. (Multiple images must match known examples of kiddie porn before a human review is triggered)

Scanning on the server itself is way less private.