Apple's reviewers, by law, cannot look at the target. No one except NCMEC is allowed to possess the target (CSAM material).

So Apple will be looking at a low-res grayscale image of whatever the collided image is, which could be legal adult pornography (let's say: a screengrab of legal "teen" 18+ porn), but the CSAM filter tells it that it's abuse material!

What would you do as the Apple reviewer?

(Hint: You only have one option, as you are legally mandated to report).

But NCMEC will then review the reports and see that it doesn't match the target.

> Apple's reviewers, by law, cannot look at the target

This is false.

> No one except NCMEC is allowed to possess the target (CSAM material).

False. No one is allowed to knowingly possess it, without taking certain actions forthwith when they become aware of it. Obviously, prior to it being reviewed as it is, neither the reviewer nor Apple has knowledge that it is actual or even particularly likely CSAM.

I think you misread what was meant by "target".

Yeah, Apple might be able to look at the uploaded image. But the reviewers don't have a copy of the original image added to the database, which is the "target".

You’re correct, but the uploaded image is sufficient as it would be obvious some that it isn’t CSAM material.

If it was, then would it matter if it wasn’t the original?

That’s the point; you can’t identify that an image is CSAM just by looking at it.

You could pollute the pool and overwhelm their human review process, making it untenable to operate. And that's if you just wanted to pollute it with obvious non-CSAM content.