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Apple has introduced a feature called Enhanced Visual Search, which allows you to identify landmarks and places of interest in your photos using advanced privacy technologies. However, the lack of transparency and the fact that it is enabled by default has raised concerns among users.

Key Points:

• New Feature: Automatically analyzes photos to identify landmarks and locations.
• Enhanced Privacy: Uses homomorphic encryption to ensure data security.
• Lack of Explicit Consent: Feature enabled by default without notification to users.
• Transparency Criticisms: Concerns about metadata handling and lack of clear communication from Apple.

Apple recently introduced an automated photo analysis system called “Enhanced Visual Search,” built into the Photos app on iOS and macOS devices. The feature identifies landmarks and places of interest by analyzing images locally, then sending encrypted data to a remote server to complete the identification. While the technology uses sophisticated mechanisms such as homomorphic encryption and differential privacy to protect user data, its implementation has sparked heated debate due to the lack of explicit consent and clear communication from the company.

Introduced with the iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 updates, the feature not only uses location metadata to identify places, but also visually analyzes images to determine the presence of significant elements. When a potential landmark is identified, the system generates a “vector embedding,” a numerical representation of the relevant portion of the image. This data, encrypted using homomorphic encryption, is sent to Apple servers, where specialized algorithms perform encrypted calculations to compare the value with a global database. The result of the analysis, also encrypted, is then returned to the user’s device.

Apple claims that the process ensures a high level of confidentiality, since neither the image data nor the results of the analysis would be accessible to the company or its technology partners, such as Cloudflare, which supports OHTTP relay to hide IP addresses. However, some security experts and developers have expressed concerns. For example, software developer Jeff Johnson criticized the feature’s default activation without prior notification to users and without clear technical documentation at the time of release. Another cause for concern is the possibility that metadata could be uploaded before the user has the opportunity to disable the feature.

According to Matthew Green, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, the lack of transparency in the implementation has fueled dissatisfaction in the technology community. Although Apple has provided technical documents describing how the system works, the timing of the release and the lack of communication have contributed to a negative perception. Some experts, including Michael Tsai, have also compared Advanced Visual Search to previous initiatives, such as the controversial CSAM image scanning plan, noting that the latter could be considered even less privacy-friendly.

The issue has opened a broader debate about the balance between technological innovation and protecting user rights. The main criticism of Apple is not so much the technical effectiveness of the encryption used, but rather the failure to respect individual choice. In the absence of explicit consent, many question whether this implementation can be considered privacy-friendly.

Ultimately, Advanced Visual Search is an example of how innovative technologies can raise complex ethical and practical dilemmas.