Users aren’t particularly happy with Apple‘s Enhanced Visual Search opt-in.
Enhanced Visual Search is a tool Apple uses to match users’ photos with landmarks and points of interest. The feature is similar to Visual Look Up and is intended to make it easier for users to find specific photos at specific locations or with specific landmarks in them. It is automatically enabled on Apple Photos on iPhones using iOS 18 and Macs using macOS Sequoia.
Users don’t appear too concerned with Enhanced Visual Search, which has some robust privacy features, including homomorphic encryption. Instead, it can be frustrating for some privacy-focused users when new tools are automatically turned on, fueling the ever-present conversation about the importance of requiring opt-in consent.
“Opt-in by default to make sure every clueless user will never take the steps to shut it down. Typical shitty corpo movement, so common that I’ll use it as a reminder to check all my privacy options in every service,” one user wrote on Reddit in a post that received more than 1,600 upvotes.
According to Apple’s Photos & Privacy, some protections exist for users. For instance, Apple says it applies “homomorphic encryption and differential privacy and use[s] an OHTTP relay that hides IP address. This prevents Apple from learning about the information in your photos.”
Another Reddit user wrote in the same post that Apple has taken fairly comprehensive steps to ensure privacy with this tool. However, the user says, “I disagree about having it turned on automatically, but most people already use the iCloud photo search thing, and this is a better and more private way of doing that.”
Users who don’t want Enhanced Visual Search can turn it off by navigating to Settings, clicking Apps, and scrolling down to Photos. At the bottom of that screen, you can toggle it on and off. On a Mac, open Photos, go to Settings, and click General to find the Enhanced Visual Search toggle.
