New photo analysis function sparks data protection debate
Apple’s “Advanced Visual Search” in iOS 18 sends data to Apple servers and sparks privacy debates. We explain how the feature works and how you can deactivate it.
With the introduction of iOS 18 and macOS 15, Apple also introduced a new feature called Advanced Visual Search in the Photos app. This feature allows you to search photos for landmarks and other significant objects. For this purpose, encrypted image data is sent to Apple servers and analyzed there. Enabling this feature by default has sparked a debate about privacy.
Advanced Visual Search analyzes image data on Apple servers
Advanced Visual Search expands Apple’s existing Visual Lookup feature, which previously worked locally on devices. The new search function in the Photos app uses artificial intelligence to analyze the photos and provide relevant information, such as buildings, which should offer users an improved user experience. It is intended to make it possible to search the photo collection more efficiently and to find special moments more easily.
For this purpose, image data is now transmitted encrypted to Apple servers in order to compare it with a global index. First, images on the device are analyzed to identify relevant image areas. These are then converted into “vector embeddings” and sent encrypted to the Apple server for comparison. Apple emphasizes in a blog postwhich was released in fall 2024, uses homomorphic encryption and differential privacy to protect user privacy.
Criticism of automatic activation
However, critics complain that the function is activated without the active consent of the user and are calling for an opt-in procedure. Even if you can deactivate the function later in the Photos app settings, this does not reverse the transfer of data to the Apple servers. The opt-out probably only applies to the photos that are taken afterwards.
Even if communication with the Apple server is encrypted and the actual content of the photos should not be visible to Apple, Apple complains Developer Jeff Johnsonwho stumbled across the setting that the function is not clearly marked more by chance. It is problematic that Apple automatically activates a function for which the user’s data is transferred to external servers without explicitly informing the user about it. Johnson emphasizes that true privacy only exists as long as the data is processed exclusively on the device.
Disable “Advanced Visual Search”.
You can disable the new search feature in the Photos app. To do this, go to the Settings app. Under “Photos,” turn off the “Advanced Visual Search” switch.
Source: www.connect.de
