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It’s not a “hidden upload mechanism”. It’s a hash-and-flag system on top of the extant “upload to iCloud” function.

Apple will already have the data. You’re already consenting to that when you enable iCloud Photo Library (the only place this is being implemented).

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But all uploads to iCloud are [edit: will be] encrypted. This system includes another, separate mechanism to upload a file unencrypted, not to iCloud, but to some other system where humans can review it. So it's not using the same functionality as a normal upload. The file doesn't have to have been uploaded to iCloud yet, or ever, to be copied off the phone using some other method. The whole point is that they don't want unencrypted copies being uploaded to iCloud, so they can't review what was uploaded via the iCloud route. Therefore they want some other method of checking your files locally - which means they need a backdoor to copy them without your permission.

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