How To Manage Enhanced Visual Search On Your Apple Device

Have you noticed an uptick in discussions on your Facebook feed about concerns regarding Apple’s automatic photo analysis by AI? This trend seems to echo a resurgence of viral hoaxes, particularly one from 2024 that claimed users could deny Facebook access to their photos with a simple statement claiming “I do not authorize META, Facebook or any entity associated with Facebook to use my photos, information, messages or posts, past or future.” Although such statements circulate frequently, they are essentially ineffective when it comes to enhancing privacy.

A Grain of Truth
The Battle for Privacy

A grain of truth

Regarding Apple, there is indeed a kernel of truth in all the chatter. The company has implemented a feature known as Enhanced Visual Search, which allows AI to analyze your iPhone photos. While this feature is enabled by default, it should not be a source of alarm for most users. Enhanced Visual Search is designed to tag locations in your photos by matching them to a global index of well-known landmarks maintained by Apple. For instance, it can determine if you’ve snapped a picture at the Leaning Tower of Pisa or Stonehenge without Apple actually viewing the contents of your photos.

Apple reassures users with a policy document released in November 2024, stating:

“Enhanced Visual Search in Photos allows you to search for photos using landmarks or points of interest. Your device privately matches places in your photos to a global index Apple maintains on our servers. We apply homomorphic encryption and differential privacy, and use an OHTTP relay that hides IP addresses. This prevents Apple from learning about the information in your photos.”

Fretting over this feature as a significant security threat appears disproportionate. Nevertheless, users who prefer to disable this setting can easily do so by navigating to Settings on their iPhone, selecting Apps, and locating Photos. At the bottom of the settings, they will find a slider for Enhanced Visual Search that can be toggled off. On a Mac, users can access this option through the Photos app under Settings/General.

The battle for privacy

These times pose an interesting challenge for Apple, especially with its recent need to respond to allegations concerning Siri selling customer data for marketing purposes. The tech giant settled a $95 million class-action lawsuit related to the Siri assistant and subsequently made a statement about privacy and Siri, clearly declaring:

“Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so.”

Despite such assertions, it’s common to hear people express beliefs like, “I swear my phone is listening to me and sending me adverts based on what I was discussing.” Those who harbor these thoughts often perceive coincidences as proof of their suspicions, a phenomenon tied to confirmation bias. Unfortunately, urban myths of this nature tend to persist, regardless of Apple’s transparency.

Perhaps the recent settlement and Apple’s reaffirmation of its commitment to user privacy will only serve to fuel more conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, I personally have no intention of disabling the Enhanced Visual Search feature or worrying that my iPhone is spying on me anytime soon.