On: The All-Seeing “i”: Apple Just Declared War on Your Privacy

[judge2020]

The reason we're focused on the state of it now is that we can switch at any time - especially if those barriers are shown to be ineffective or are removed at some point.

[int_19h → judge2020]

The real threat here is legal, not technical. Think mandatory on-device scanning as condition of access to the hardware market.

[judge2020 → int_19h]

That just ties back into "be afraid of what it could become", and isn't dependent on Apple making this system - Congress could have forced PhotoDNA to be shipped with phones since the inception of PhotoDNA in 2011[0].

0: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(11)60791-4

[int_19h → judge2020]

Of course it's not dependent on it being Apple. It could just as well have been Google.

And the difference is that Apple gave them what they needed to mandate this while still claiming that they preserve privacy.