Privacy experts have sounded the alarm about a new Apple feature which was introduced allegedly without informing or asking users.
The Enhanced Visual Search feature allows users to search for landmarks and points of interest in their photos but requires sending some photo data to Apple’s servers.
Mac and iPhone customers discovered this feature enabled by default just days after Christmas, with some software and privacy experts immediately switching off the tool.
Enhanced Visual Search enables Apple to capture, encrypt and then centrally analyse parts of users’ photos, allowing key landmarks to be identified and then searchable.
Although commentators have noted that the feature’s encryption of the photos and image data means that user privacy is not being violated, others have raised concerns about its implications for privacy and the secretive way it was introduced.
Software developer Jeff Johnson said: ‘This choice was made by Apple, silently, without my consent.
‘From my own perspective, computing privacy is simple: if something happens entirely on my computer, then it’s private, whereas if my computer sends data to the manufacturer of the computer, then it’s not private, or at least not entirely private.
‘Thus, the only way to guarantee computing privacy is to not send data off the device.’
Matthew Green, a privacy expert and cryptography professor at John Hopkins University, said: ‘It’s very frustrating when you learn about a service two days before New Year and you find that it’s already been enabled on your phone.’
The function, which is believed to have arrived with iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 on October 28, 2024, was first revealed to the public four days earlier.
Apple defended the privacy of its feature in a document published at the time: ‘At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right.
‘Our work to protect user privacy is informed by a set of privacy principles, and one of those principles is to prioritize using on-device processing.
‘By performing computations locally on a user’s device, we help minimize the amount of data that is shared with Apple or other entities.
‘Of course, a user may request on-device experiences powered by machine learning (ML) that can be enriched by looking up global knowledge hosted on servers.
‘To uphold our commitment to privacy while delivering these experiences, we have implemented a combination of technologies to help ensure these server lookups are private, efficient, and scalable.’
Apple also say that several privacy-protecting techniques are used in the tool to protect individual’s data: homomorphic encryption, differential privacy and technology to hide IP addresses.
These measures are designed to prevent Apple from learning about the content of users’ photos.
The automatic opting in of users to the feature was criticised by software developer Michael Tsai: ‘Not only is it not opt-in, but you can’t effectively opt out if it starts uploading metadata about your photos before you even use the search feature.
‘It does this even if you’ve already opted out of uploading your photos to iCloud.
‘Apple is being thoughtful about doing this in a (theoretically) privacy-preserving way, but I don’t think the company is living up to its ideals here.’
Enhanced Visual Search can be turned off on iOS or iPadOS devices by going to Settings > Apps > Photos. On Mac, open Photos and go to Settings > General.
Metro has approached Apple for comment
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