I don't know for sure if the US government has publicly endorsed creating a backdoor after the San Bernardino shooting incident. That was 2015/2016. The Apple vs Epic case made an interesting email public about Apple's head of fraud acknowledging the problem of CSAM on their platform in Feb 2020 [1] but I agree with you that this kind of feature has to have been in development since before then because it's clearly been red teamed. The feature wasn't released until they knew they would have a response to all of the technical questions concerning the actual implementation.

The UK policy, from 2017, around age verification [2] before giving access to pornographic material has definitely also played a part. Even youtube recently has made a strong verification effort going as far as asking for a credit card or photo ID as a response to COPPA [3] and EU policy. But Apple hasn't framed the porn blurring for minors feature as a response to that policy, which is surprising. And none of those government policies explain the need to do on device scanning of CSAM instead of in the cloud like everyone else.

I personally believe Apple felt a requirement from a business perspective more than to avoid government regulation. It doesn't seem to be a secret warrant type situation, because publicly disclosure wouldn't really make sense. If catching criminals consuming/sharing CSAM is the motive, warning those criminals that this change is happening before implementation seems counter-productive.

They even went as far as going after leakers a couple of months ago [4].

> The letter purportedly cautioned leakers that they must not disclose information about unreleased Apple projects because it may give Apple's competitors valuable information and "mislead customers, because what is disclosed may not be accurate."

It's clear in hindsight that these "features" leaking early is what Apple was afraid of as it's been confirmed that the CSAM scanning algorithm was found, inactive, in iOS 14.3. The current stance is that Apple will have an additional check but if the presence of the scanning algorithm was leaked then, they wouldn't have been able to do the same PR spinning that they're doing now.

I agree with you that it really doesn't fit Apple's narrative of privacy first. They are the same company that developed the security enclave to make a more secure product starting with the iphone 5s in 2013.

I hope we do get some clarity on the motivation because it's clear that no one buys the "we did it for better privacy" narrative they are currently pushing. Their hand being forced doesn't seem out of the question to me either, but their own public response seems to make it doubtful to me.

I think it speaks volumes that the first item that shows up on google when you search the term "icloud scanning apple" is a lifehacker article titled "How to Stop Apple From Scanning Your iPhone Photos Before iOS 15 Arrives".

1. https://www.theverge.com/22611236/epic-v-apple-emails-projec...

2. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/05/uk-governmen...

3. https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/24/why-youtube-wants-s...

4. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/24/reliable-leaker-kang-hi...