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iPhones running on iOS 18 sharing private photo data with Apple ‘by default’

The latest move by tech giant Apple has sparked conversations about how private our digital data actually is.

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Apple PrivacyApple highlights its privacy centric features on iPhone. (Image credit: Apple)

Apple boasts of its privacy protocols across products and services. The company even launched a campaign in 2019 titled ‘Privacy. That’s Apple’. However, a recent report by a developer named Jeff Johnson highlights that iPhones and Macs may not be as private as we think.

Apple has automatically enabled a feature called ‘Enhanced Visual Search’ on iPhones running on iOS 18 and Macs powered by macOS Sequoia, which automatically shares data from your photos with Apple, Johnson indicated in his blog on December 28.

We verified this claim on an iPhone 15, where the Enhanced Visual Search option was found to be enabled by default. Once activated, this feature mainly helps you get more information about landmarks by identifying them and providing contextual details.

This function operates on two different levels on iPhones and Macs. First, an on-device machine learning model processes the image to determine if there is a region of interest (ROI) in the picture, such as a landmark. It then generates a vector embedding, which is shared with Apple. Apple matches this embedding with its database to identify the landmark.

Interestingly, this also means that Apple does not have full access to your photos but it scans all pictures in your gallery when the ‘Enhanced Visual Search’ feature is enabled.

How to disable Enhanced Visual Search?

Apple Enhanced Visual Search Enhanced Visual Search is enabled by default on iPhones and Macs. (Express Photo)

On iPhone:

Go to Settings > Apps > Photos
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and disable the Enhanced Visual Search option.

On Mac:

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Open the Photos app.
Go to Settings and disable the Enhanced Visual Search option.

 

© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
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