A recent discovery by developer Jeff Johnson revealed a new “Enhanced Visual Search” toggle within the Apple Photos app in iOS 18. This feature, enabled by default, allows users to identify landmarks in their photos by sending image data to Apple servers.
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Similar to Apple’s “Visual Look Up” feature, which identifies plants and animals, Enhanced Visual Search enables users to swipe up on a photo containing a landmark and tap “Look Up Landmark” to receive identification information.
While Apple’s description states that the feature “privately matches places in your photos,” it lacks clarity regarding the data transmission process. Apple’s research blog indicates that the phone creates vector embeddings of the landmark within the image and sends these, along with several “fake queries,” to Apple servers for analysis. The phone then selects the most accurate match from the results returned by Apple.
This data transmission raises privacy concerns, particularly considering Apple’s emphasis on user privacy, exemplified by their “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” campaign. As Johnson points out, even without malicious intent, software bugs or potential vulnerabilities could compromise user data.
Apple has not yet responded to requests for comment on these concerns.
Users can find and manage the Enhanced Visual Search setting in iOS/iPadOS under Settings > Apps > Photos, or under the “Search” heading within Photos > Settings on a Mac.
