From a technical standpoint, at least you are protected from future policy changes if your files in the cloud are encrypted.

Understand, I am playing the devils advocate role more than anything else.

The key point I'm trying to make is that where the data is located matters for whether Apple (or Microsoft or Redhat or whichever company) has the ability or right to read and report on that data.

> at least you are protected from future policy changes if your files in the cloud are encrypted.

If, and only if, that data is never synced back to your phone (which Apples does currently).

The phone would be literally incapable of determining if there were any matches. Please read up on how it was designed to work.