Apple has always positioned itself as an advocate of consumer privacy, frequently contrasting its policies with those of its competitors. However, a new feature in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia raises serious privacy issues.
This feature, "Enhanced Visual Search," aims to improve the Photos app by identifying landmarks and users' images and providing contextual information. It does so by sharing data from users' photos with Apple servers— potentially without explicit consent.
Developer Jeff Johnson sparked the debate and revealed that this feature is automatically enabled on iPhones and Macs running the most recent versions.
The technology analyses photographs using on-device machine learning to identify areas of interest, such as famous monuments. It then creates a digital representation, or "vector embedding," of the image properties. This information is then encrypted and transmitted to Apple for comparison with a global database to identify the landmark.
While Apple says the data is anonymous, critics argued that the default opt-in setting undermines transparency and user control. Many people may be unaware that their photos are being processed and shared.
This feature's potential risks include unauthorized access to personal photos, data misuse, and possible privacy breaches.
Although Apple claims not to have full access to customers' photo libraries, the automated scanning of all gallery photographs when the function is activated has raised questions about whether the company's privacy policies are consistent with its public stance.
If you are concerned about the consequences of this feature, you can easily disable it. On iPhones running iOS 18, navigate to Settings > Apps > Photos and disable the "Enhanced Visual Search" option near the bottom. Mac users can also disable it by launching the Photos app, navigating to Settings, and toggling off the feature.
While Enhanced Visual Search may improve convenience, its default activation highlights increasing tension between technological innovation and user privacy— a conversation that Apple and its users must continue to have.