Comment by onesociety2022

You are conflating iCloud Keychain with the rest of the iCloud data. iCloud keychain is always end-to-end encrypted. Apple cannot decrypt it even if they receive a subpoena. The other iCloud data like your photos are not end-to-end encrypted by default unless you turn on Advanced Data Protection (ADP).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 There is a table showing exactly what is E2EE under Standard vs ADP mode.

In the news article you shared above, it's very likely this person did not have ADP turned on. So everything in their iCloud that is not E2EE by default could be decrypted by Apple.