A recent feature in iOS 18 shares users’ photos and photo data with Apple by default, a setting that has raised concerns about privacy.
Called “Enhanced Visual Search,” the feature allows the “device to match places in your photos with a worldwide index maintained by Apple” with a view to search photos based on landmarks and other information inside photos.
While the setting intends to make the Photos app more efficient and searchable, developer Jeff Johnson raised issues with the privacy of sharing such data with Apple despite the so-called “enriched” iPhone experience.
“From my very own perspective, computing privacy is straightforward: if something happens entirely on my computer, then it’s private, whereas if my computer sends data to the manufacturer of the pc, then it’s not private, or at the least not entirely private,” he wrote in essentially the most recent entry on his blog.
“Thus, the one strategy to guarantee computing privacy is to not send data off the device.”
The selection to toggle “Enhanced Visual Search” on, then, “was made by Apple, silently, without my consent,” he said.
“It should be as much as the person user to make a decision their very own tolerance for the chance of privacy violations,” he argued.
He pointed to the many security and privacy flaws that Apple has needed to patch in recent times, that are typically accompanied by urgent update warnings.
“A software bug can be sufficient to make users vulnerable, and Apple can’t guarantee that their software includes no bugs,” Johnson wrote, claiming that the info from the “Enhanced Visual Search” feature could potentially be exploited by malicious actors.
In accordance with Apple’s “Photos & Privacy” document, the tech giant said that the info used for “Enhanced Visual Search” is encrypted and the IP address of users is shielded in order that Apple cannot learn from the knowledge within the photos.
To show off “Enhanced Visual Search” in your iPhone, open the Settings app, navigate to Apps, then Photos and scroll to the underside of the page. On a Mac, open the Photos app then head to Settings, then General to toggle off.
Experts recently urged Apple device users to update to the newest version of iOS 18 despite their fears of AI or otherwise, as a bug within the non-updated software could leave customers vulnerable to malicious actors.
The bug may very well be exploited by hackers to access users’ sensitive data with no trace — and the longer people wait to update, the upper the chance.
A recent feature in iOS 18 shares users’ photos and photo data with Apple by default, a setting that has raised concerns about privacy.
Called “Enhanced Visual Search,” the feature allows the “device to match places in your photos with a worldwide index maintained by Apple” with a view to search photos based on landmarks and other information inside photos.
While the setting intends to make the Photos app more efficient and searchable, developer Jeff Johnson raised issues with the privacy of sharing such data with Apple despite the so-called “enriched” iPhone experience.
“From my very own perspective, computing privacy is straightforward: if something happens entirely on my computer, then it’s private, whereas if my computer sends data to the manufacturer of the pc, then it’s not private, or at the least not entirely private,” he wrote in essentially the most recent entry on his blog.
“Thus, the one strategy to guarantee computing privacy is to not send data off the device.”
The selection to toggle “Enhanced Visual Search” on, then, “was made by Apple, silently, without my consent,” he said.
“It should be as much as the person user to make a decision their very own tolerance for the chance of privacy violations,” he argued.
He pointed to the many security and privacy flaws that Apple has needed to patch in recent times, that are typically accompanied by urgent update warnings.
“A software bug can be sufficient to make users vulnerable, and Apple can’t guarantee that their software includes no bugs,” Johnson wrote, claiming that the info from the “Enhanced Visual Search” feature could potentially be exploited by malicious actors.
In accordance with Apple’s “Photos & Privacy” document, the tech giant said that the info used for “Enhanced Visual Search” is encrypted and the IP address of users is shielded in order that Apple cannot learn from the knowledge within the photos.
To show off “Enhanced Visual Search” in your iPhone, open the Settings app, navigate to Apps, then Photos and scroll to the underside of the page. On a Mac, open the Photos app then head to Settings, then General to toggle off.
Experts recently urged Apple device users to update to the newest version of iOS 18 despite their fears of AI or otherwise, as a bug within the non-updated software could leave customers vulnerable to malicious actors.
The bug may very well be exploited by hackers to access users’ sensitive data with no trace — and the longer people wait to update, the upper the chance.
