iPhone Photos app shares users’ photo data with Apple without explicit consent, developer says Jeff Johnson. The feature, called “Enhanced Visual Search,” allows landmark identification but requires sharing data with Apple’s servers.
Users checking their iPhone 15 Pro and other iOS devices find that the setting is automatically enabled in their Photos app settings. The feature, accessible through iOS Settings or Mac’s Photos app settings, allows users to identify landmarks in their photos and search for images using landmark names.
Although the feature appears to be an extension of the Visual Look Up feature introduced in iOS 15, it differs significantly in its data sharing requirements. Unlike Visual Look Up, which runs entirely on-device, Enhanced Visual Search sends encrypted “vector embeddings” – digital representations of image features – to Apple’s servers for landmark matching.
According to Apple’s Machine Learning Research Blog, the process begins with an on-device scan to detect “regions of interest” that might contain landmarks. Once detected, these regions are converted to vector embeddings before being encrypted and sent to Apple for comparison with their global benchmark database.
Despite Apple implementing privacy measures, including data encryption and condensed image formatting, there have been concerns about enabling this data sharing feature by default. The company’s approach contrasts with its handling of other data collection features, such as Siri interactions and analytics, which typically require explicit user opt-in.
Apple has not yet responded to requests for comment on these privacy concerns. Users can manually turn off the feature by going to the Photos settings in their iOS Settings app or the settings menu in the Mac Photos app.
