[nicce]

> Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?

People think that this kind of capability was not there already, while it was. The simplest example case is normal iCloud sync. It scans your files and gets metadata, finally comparing to cloud to know which files to sync.

Other concern is, that this can be easily expanded to other kind of content, or whole device (outside of iCloud files). While, this sounds like valid concern, government who can force this change, could have forced it already. "Technology does not exist" is not valid excuse, never was. There are pretty expensive consults used by politics to prove these excuses otherwise.