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This is not client side. Images just sitting on your Android phone are probably safe (although Google could push an update at any time). Your images get scanned when you back them up, send them over RCS, etc. I have even seen criminal cases originating from reverse image search - anything that touche the servers of the big tech companies, except apparently Apple, will be scanned using questionable AI and against a secret list to Protect the Children.
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This is an image that he did not send off of his device to anyone except his doctor's office, yet Google reached into his private data and scanned it anyway.

Google reported him to the police based on a single false positive.

To add insult to injury, even after the police contacted Google to tell them that they had cleared him of wrongdoing, Google refused to restore access to his account.

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Stop making stuff up man, the image was uploaded to Google Photos servers.

> The father uploaded photos of his son’s genitals, which were also backed up on his Google cloud, to the health care provider’s messaging system as requested.

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Did he set up his device to upload his private data to Google, or did Google create an OS that automatically sent everyone's private data to their AI server for scanning without explicit consent?
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Google Photos does ask you for consent when you run it.

(It is, granted, a bit pushy about it and will ask multiple times when you run it with an intrusive dialog.)

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Informed consent would require Google to inform you that their AI server will scan every photo you take with your device and report you to the police if it should detect (or hallucinate) something it doesn't like.
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On page 83 of subsection 14 of paragraph 3 of the consent document you agree to by using "google" as a verb, or by viewing any website they have a tracking pixel on there is a link to a policy which mentions that they retain the right to scan any and all of your photos for advertising targeting purposes, and further, if you read page 27 of the sub agreement mentioned in upside down white on white text in the main TOS they describe advertising purposes as: "Anything we want to do, in perpetuity, for any reason, and without any right of redress".

It's right there plain as day in the TOS. I don't know how people can use these products without understanding the contract they locked themselves into. /s

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I'm pretty sure this article if from after Apple introduced (floated the idea of?) client-side scanning. I'm not sure it really bolsters the idea that it's been open for years.
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Google is not Apple. Apple customers expect the higher standard.
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