New iPhone Feature Raises Privacy Concerns
What iPhone Users Need to Know About Enhanced Visual Search and Privacy
Apple’s latest iOS update includes a new feature called Enhanced Visual Search, which is designed to improve the Photos app’s search functionality. Sounds great and promises convenience. However, the feature comes with significant privacy concerns that iOS users should know about.
What is Enhanced Visual Search?
Enhanced Visual Search allows your iPhone or Mac to match the places in your photos with a global index maintained by Apple. While this may make searching for landmarks or other details in your photos more convenient, it also means your photos and related data are shared with Apple by default. Read more about the feature here.
Why Does This Matter?
Developer Jeff Johnson recently raised the alarm about this feature, pointing out that:
The feature is enabled by default without user consent.
Data is sent off-device, meaning it’s no longer fully private.
While Apple claims the data is encrypted and your IP address is shielded, no system is invulnerable to bugs or exploitation.
In Johnson’s words (which we agree with):
“The only way to guarantee computing privacy is to not send data off the device.”
What Can You Do?
If you’re uncomfortable with this feature, you can turn it off:
On iPhone: Open the Settings app, navigate to Apps > Photos, and scroll to the bottom to toggle off Enhanced Visual Search.
On Mac: Open the Photos app, go to Settings > General, and disable the feature.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t the first time Apple’s approach to privacy has been questioned. In 2021, Apple’s CSAM scanning feature, which aimed to detect child abuse material in iCloud photo, raised concerns about potential government misuse and overreach. We highlighted another issue with Apple back in May 2024, also involving photos:
Big Tech Ramps Up the Creepy Factor
In an impressive convergence, the largest tech companies in the mobile space all had significant personal privacy issues in the past two weeks. We’re talking about Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple. Each of these incidents serve as real life examples and warnings about the importance of keeping up to date on technology tends so you can be vigilant about protecting your personal privacy. We summarize each incident below.
While Apple promises robust encryption and user protections, the choice to enable the Visual Look Up feature without explicit consent is not ideal (putting it diplomatically). It underscores the importance of staying informed and regularly evaluating your privacy settings. Even (especially?) when the company is Apple and invests heavily in marketing themselves as a privacy first company.
If you’re ready to move away from Big Tech photo storage solutions, we did a deep dive back in November on the topic. Link below. If you’re looking for a privacy related New Years Resolution, this is a solid choice.
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Disclaimer: None of the above is to be deemed legal advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by a privacy attorney with 15+ years of working for, with and against Big Tech and Big Data. And this post is for informational purposes only and is not intended for use in furtherance of any unlawful activity.
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Thank you!!
Thank you for this! It’s there a master post of Apple security -related default settings that we should change? I try to keep up, but it seems with each new software update there are more things being turned on by default.