A recent discovery reveals that the “Enhanced Visual Search” feature in the Apple Photos app may collect data from user photos without consent, as it is enabled by default on devices running iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.
Enhanced Visual Search facilitates the identification of landmarks in photos. When enabled, it allows your device to analyze images and send data to Apple for comparison with a global database. Upon taking a photo of a landmark, users can swipe up and select “Look Up Landmark” to receive information about the structure.
Apple states that the feature utilizes an on-device machine learning model to detect regions of interest, which leads to the calculation of a vector embedding if a landmark is recognized. This vector is encrypted and sent to Apple to match against its global index of landmarks. Developer Jeff Johnson noted that the default activation of this feature raises privacy concerns, as users must manually disable it to prevent data sharing.
Users wishing to disable Enhanced Visual Search can do so by navigating to Settings on their iPhone under Apps > Photos, then scrolling to the bottom to toggle it off. On a Mac, users can find the option within the Photos app settings.
Featured image credit: Ciocan Ciprian/Unsplash
