Both of the announced features sound fine on their own — Apple has always been able to scan iCloud and send your data to police [0], and PhotoDNA is a decade old; whereas on-device machine learning on kid phones does not (according to Apple) involve sending anything to Apple reviewers and the govt.

But announcing both features in the same post makes it inevitable that they get conflated, e.g. “Apple’s machine learning will send suspected child porn-like images from your iMessages to iCloud, where it will be reviewed and possibly sent to the police”. Apple obviously knows this — so them being ok with that raises some serious eyebrows, as if they’re quietly setting the groundwork to make that a reality.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-fbi-icloud-investigati...