Did Apple Keep You in the Dark About Data Sharing in ‘Enhanced Visual Search’?

Tech giant Apple is known for its stronghold on privacy measures and ensuring users’ data remains safe. However, a recently published blog by Jeff Johnson is raising the curtain on a feature for iPhone users that might be doing more than promised.

The feature in question for iOS users is called ‘Enhanced Visual Search’ and when this toggle is on for the device’s Photos app, usually by default, it’s giving the phone permission to share information from the saved photos with Apple.

Image: lapcatsoftware

Many were quick to check if that was indeed true and they were amazed how they had no idea. The feature allows users to search for some top-notch landmarks that they’ve previously captured and even explore more pictures using the same names. All in all, it does make the search process much more defined but the cost is users’ privacy.

This is not the first time that we’ve seen Apple turn back on its own claims. It previously tarnished its reputation of being a strong privacy enthusiast when collecting users’ interactions with voice assistant Siri.

If you want to experience it too, simply swipe on an image that you took of a building and click on ‘Look up Landmark’. You’ll find a card pop-up that really identifies you. Several examples were also shared to prove the point.

For many, a first glance shows nothing alarming. It’s a simple and very convenient expansion for the already popular Visual Look Up that was rolled out on iOS 15. However, the latter never required additional permission to share more information with the iPhone maker but this one does.

You can find descriptions under every toggle that speak about Apple providing permission to silently match locations in the images with global indexes that are covered by Apple. You can get more information through the blog including how the feature really works to give you regions of interest related to the landmark you’re in search of.

As per this blog, the embedded vector gets encrypted and shared with Apple so that it can be compared with the database. You’ll see the iPhone maker provide its fair share of explanations on this front through technical means. This is a part of Apple’s research blog and if you ask us, not a lot of it makes sense.

For now, we’re in search of Apple’s response on this front. They didn’t provide any immediate reply on whether the accusations of data sharing were true or not. For now, it appears the firm went to long lengths to ensure information remains private.

We feel that making this toggle a feature where users could opt-in was a better way to go about the whole situation. Right now, it seems like Apple tried to keep the fact that data was shared with the company under wraps, and for any company, that’s never a good look.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World