back to article Apple auto-opts everyone into having their photos analyzed by AI for landmarks

Apple last year deployed a mechanism for identifying landmarks and places of interest in images stored in the Photos application on its customers iOS and macOS devices and enabled it by default, seemingly without explicit consent. Apple customers have only just begun to notice. The feature, known as Enhanced Visual Search, …

  1. Lee D Silver badge

    Yet again:

    I probably don't care what you're doing with the data if It's handled correctly.

    I do care that you think you have permission to do anything without me knowing.

    Informed consent is important. If someone WANTS you to do this... great, sounds like you're handling it safely.

    But nobody was ever asked and photos were just uploaded to the cloud without informed consent and knowing what was actually going to happen and how they were going to be dealt with.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Stop

      Indeed.

      It is high time top IT companies stop presuming that they have the right to decide for their customers.

      They have the power, not the right.

      1. b0llchit Silver badge

        That will only happen when they are fined at the scale of a whole year of world-wide revenue.

        1. Helcat Silver badge

          Nope: That's not what would stop this.

          Fine the PEOPLE who are making these decisions: So the board of directors for signing off on it, and the heads of department who designed and implemented this. Make it personal and THEN you'll see a change in attitude.

          In addition: Add a fine against the dividend pay-outs to hit investors in the pocket and you'll have them on the warpath against those who thought this was a good idea.

          Fining the company does little more than get the costs passed on to the unsuspecting customers who, in this case, and also the victims.

          1. brainwrong
            Unhappy

            "Fine the PEOPLE who are making these decisions:"

            Nope, the only thing that will stop this is for people to stop using their services in sufficient numbers. Which won't happen, because most people don't know or care.

            1. ITS Retired

              Do what Iceland did to the bankers. Tossed them in prison and did not bail out the banks.

          2. hoola Silver badge

            You need to fine both.

            The entire board at a level that really hurts. For most they earn so much that even a year's salary could be lost without much discomfort.

            The companies need fines based on global revenues, again at meaningful levels.

            You could fine Apple a year's revenue and they would see no impact.

          3. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

            Close - you'd have to do C suite prison time, not fines. When I say prison time, I mean general population Louisiana chain gang prison, not the Beverly Hills Residential Hall with a golf course and twnnis courts on the grounds. They'd actually be more effective than the fines.

            1. Fred Daggy Silver badge
              Megaphone

              Not just time, not just dollars ...

              Problem is, that even if they were in PMITA prison, they still have significant assets that are just continuing to accumulate interest, dividends and appreciation. They get out, barring significant economic event, even richer that when they went in.

              If I earned 10 million for 24 months prison time ... then lock me up and take away the key and take the smile off my face. As it is, 6 months in the slammer will probably cost me everything as I can't earn an income and I won't have the means to settle what is outstanding.

              So, its a combination of loss of liberty, loss of earning and direct, meaningful compensation to those affected and we might START to have an effect. It won't be the beginning of the end, merely the end of the beginning.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "But nobody was ever asked and photos were just uploaded to the cloud without informed consent"

        Yes and no. People have been sold on how convenient it is for their devices to upload media to the cloud and how easy they've made it to "share" that content. To do that, they need you to sign up for an account and upload your credentials for your social media accounts, etc. There's no third party instruction that begins with "on the other hand". Coldplay and some other artists had unreleased material stolen and sold on the dark web with the thief having just been sentenced. If that music had any value, why was it smart to have it hosted online somewhere and not just backed up on a physical media that's been put someplace secure? I can remember a story about Sony being hacked and yet-to-be-released material was downloaded and published online. I would hope that Sony learned a lesson and doesn't have unreleased feature films on a server someplace reachable from the internet.

        The opt-in default is also a problem along with needing to have an account to make use of an iPhone, etc.

        1. Phil Koenig Bronze badge
          Alert

          When the industry only has 2 players...

          People have been sold on how convenient it is for their devices to upload media to the cloud and how easy they've made it to "share" that content.

          When the entire handheld platform industry is completely controlled by just 2 companies, no one needs to get "sold" on any particular feature before choosing to buy into that platform because there are virtually no other alternatives. Google is even worse when it comes to user privacy than Apple is. FAR worse.

          In this case I agree with the OP: most people did NOT ask for Apple to be snooping around on their devices for data to upload to the Apple server farm without their permission. At the very least they should be PROMPTED for this action before proceeding.

          Especially since Apple loves to crow about how they supposedly respect their user's privacy and their right to control their own data.

          I have used handheld devices from a large variety of platforms over the years, and use and support both android and apple devices today.

          Previously, I had all the iCloud functions disabled on my iPhone. But when I recently upgraded that device, Apple basically tricked me into enabling those functions during the device migration by presenting a dialog that implied that without accepting that login prompt, the App Store would not work. (Historically you could login to the App Store separately from a general iPhone/iCloud login, and this is still true, so that dialog presented was intentionally misleading in that regard)

          So they started sucking all the data off that phone WITHOUT MY PERMISSION while I was doing that migration, and after frantically disabling all the cloud functions and selecting the option to delete whatever was "synced" I was still unable to disable iCloud entirely.

          Then when I researched how to delete all the iCloud data Apple started failing to authenticate me to my account (a longstanding problem with them) and blocked me from doing so.

          This stuff is absolutely "Big Brother-like" and there's no reason they don't give users more obvious choices to disable these functions if they wish to do so, other than Apple's commercial objectives of "capturing" your data and making it semantically more likely you'll feel "locked" to the platform as a result.

          1. GNU Enjoyer
            Angel

            Re: When the industry only has 2 players...

            >Google is even worse when it comes to user privacy than Apple is. FAR worse.

            google and apple are just as bad when it comes to user privacy, considering that both were part of PRISM; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prism_slide_5.jpg

            Google simply tells the truth as to most of the spying they do (although they don't admit some of the really bad things they do), while apple lies about it - so it appears that google is worse, when both are the same.

            While apple does most processing on the device (saves processing costs), encrypts files before they are uploaded to "icloud" and use homomorphic encryption etc, that is all rendered moot due to how apple has total control over all devices that run their proprietary OS's and can simply command the devices to send whatever information or encryption keys they want.

            1. Phil Koenig Bronze badge

              Re: When the industry only has 2 players...

              google and apple are just as bad when it comes to user privacy, considering that both were part of PRISM

              Pretty much all the large US IT players were part of PRISM so that's not saying much.

              Google simply tells the truth as to most of the spying they do

              Not at all.

              If you dig very deeply you might be able to find a lot of the details but the majority of their public statements are extremely deceptive on such matters.

              My axiom at this point is that whenever Google makes a public announcement that they are doing something to "improve user privacy", this change is inevitably accompanied by 3 OTHER things that actually DEGRADE your privacy which they DO NOT publicly mention. (And by "publicly mention" I mean announcements made to the general public, not arcane technical documents only ever read by coders and such who are already likely to be Google acolytes.)

              As far as Apple "lying" - I would say that in that company's case it's more a matter of creative omission and simultaneously crowing about how much they supposedly care about your privacy. Their users tend to be much more credulous about such things so it's not a difficult game for them to play.

              As for the homomorphic encryption and such - that stuff is not just not enabled by default, it also only applies if you keep all your Apple Things at the latest hardware and software versions. For example, it does not apply in my case due to the older Mac I am currently typing this on, which is prevented from enabling the "advanced iCloud encryption" stuff.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It does it too with Music

      I never asked to use Cloudy music, nor do I want to, but if I start Music now it apparently has to download things - which were already stored local.

      I'm not sure who is responsible for this but they really ought to stop smoking whatever it is they use.

    3. Splurg The Barbarian

      Agreed. If someone is using local storage on any device then, no matter how safely, how securely and how well encrypted, the device/software creator has no right to one nibble of that data,nothing, zilch, zero.

      After all they certainly don't like the reverse when their data is taken!!

      It is unacceptable, also, that applications that are local or should be non cloud/internet enabled have data transfer from devices.

      It requires legislation, making it illegal to remove ANY data from a device or application with out specific consent with a full explanation of what is being taken and why. Far too much data is taken, no matter how insignificant, not because it is needed rather just because it can be.

    4. DS999 Silver badge

      Definitely an own goal

      Yes while I think Apple went to great lengths to make this as rock solid as they could from a privacy perspective, having it introduced with the default as "enabled" has turned what should have been a win and feather in Apple's privacy cap into an own goal from a PR standpoint. Because the headlines aren't "Apple introduces super privacy protecting way of determining landmarks in photos" but headlines like the Reg headline for this article.

      I get that no one wants to have a bunch of dialog boxes for new features being introduced in every OS update, but it seems like that should be required (if not by regulation affecting everyone then by Apple's PR team wanting to avoid being called into crisis management mode over a holiday/weekend) in cases where data about you will leave your device that formerly did not leave your device. No matter how well protected it is, because consumers should have a right to choose whether to do that.

      When this update was installed Apple could have put up a dialog asking if you want to enable automatic photo landmark recognition and give you a "yes" and "no" and a "give me more information" which can show you a summary small enough to fit into a dialog box without scrolling and contain a link to get the down and dirty details about homomorphic encryption and so forth.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Definitely an own goal

        "When this update was installed Apple could have put up a dialog asking if you want to enable automatic photo landmark recognition and give you a "yes" and "no" and a "give me more information""

        A good portion of the new "features" can be opt-in with a summary sheet (links to details) of what's on offer. I create photos professionally and do not "share" my work. People pay me for that work and if they paid for exclusive use, I have to make sure nothing is leaking on my end that would violate the agreement. Even with snapshots, there can be very good reasons why I do not want them spread around, nor any meta data.

        I find it scary that Tesla knows as much as they do about the Cybertruck that was set ablaze in Las Vegas. The Superchargers (for the most part) do not have payment terminals so billing is handled by having an account and registering vehicles to that account which is transmitted when the car is plugged in. You have no way to use a Supercharger without that data being harvested. Telsa knew that the battery was fine and the fire was not due to that very quickly. Will we also find out that Tesla has footage of the driver shooting himself from interior cameras? I doubt that will be published, but look out for a mention of that slipping in a police statement. The data has allowed for quick progress in the investigation, but it's a very edge case. Did this person realize that Tesla was collecting all of this data. Do VIPs that own Teslas realize how much data is being harvested? Sure, in the dense sales agreement they might have been informed, but not everybody has access to an electron microscope capable of reading all of the fine print. It's rather soporific for a reason too. They don't want you reading any of it and if you try, your eyelids will start getting heavy, verrrry heavy.

        I've never found any reason to spend the money for an iPhone. There's nothing it offers that improves my life.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Definitely an own goal

          Do you not consider what I suggest to be "opt in"? If it requires that you dig into the settings to find the option because you've read about it somewhere then Apple will have wasted their time implementing it because hardly anyone will use it.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Definitely an own goal

            "Apple will have wasted their time implementing it because hardly anyone will use it."

            Apple should then NOT bury those opt-in boxes deep in the settings and why would they? They do for opt-out so people don't do that. Some group spent a load of time at Apple coming up with that functionality so it wouldn't be that hard for them to create a one-sheet that tells about how wonderful those features are (while glossy over the privacy issues). Tech writers needing word count will pick up on those PR releases, file off the serial numbers and publish them. They might even try out those new features as well, if they have time, and add a paragraph with their impressions.

            1. DS999 Silver badge

              Re: Definitely an own goal

              That's how settings work. You think they would put this on the first page of the settings app where all the major categories are? No, you'll have to drill down into the Photos app at a minimum. So as I said, it will be hidden and no one will use it. People don't go perusing the settings for all the major apps on their phone seeing what's out there.

              The only chance they change it will be if they hear somewhere that this is an option and they're told exactly where to go. Because it wouldn't have to be in the photos app, it could be under privacy or under apple intelligence, maybe even somewhere else, so already they'd have to look around, and if they don't even know what the option is called they probably click around for a minute then give up.

              Its funny that you think companies DELIBERATELY hide opt-out stuff. Maybe you should take a look at how it is to find the opt-in stuff. When you have a complicated device with thousands of settings, and features that overlap in multiple ways (photos, apple intelligence, privacy, location) it isn't like there's an "obvious" one place to look.

  2. Dinanziame Silver badge
    Meh

    Meanwhile, Google has been recognizing landmarks in user pictures for a decade, and Android users apparently don't care. I understand that some people care a lot about privacy, but I have to say it's probably a vanishingly small minority.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Meanwhile a poster is proclaiming that Google do the same thing without providing any evidence and we're supposed to just believe it.

      I understand that some people care a lot about facts, but I have to say it's probably a vanishingly small minority.

      1. Phones Sheridan Silver badge

        Google's Cloud Vision is a real thing, although the earliest I can find reference to it is 2016, so 9* years, not 10 :p

        https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/detecting-landmarks

        https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-identify-landmarks-on-android

        I think nowadays we are beyond speculating or requiring evidence if Google have slurped or not. Of course they have, and then some more too!

        *I came across this stackoverflow from 10 years ago, discussing using Google Vision to track peoples faces. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38435653/detecting-face-landmarks-points-in-android , so it doesn't take a great leap of imagination that at some point, the pair were combined to track who you are, and where you were from the pic alone.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Perhaps I'm missing something here but according to the links above you have to open the Google app and ask it to identify the landmark, it doesn't systematically sift through all of your local photos without asking... which is what the article seems to imply Apple is doing.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and Android users apparently don't care

      Or maybe they don't have a meaningful choice? Considering that the mobile market is essentially a duopoly, and whatever Google and Apple do most users have to accept?

    3. HuBo Silver badge
      Gimp

      Yeah, you can do landmark recognition with perty much any run-of-the-mill corpulent model of visual appreciation these days (or even a well-upholstered multimodal model of "language") ... heck, they can even be used to uncover hidden martian invasion-planning geoglyphs (near Nazca) right here on earth! The issue here in TFA is that Apple's tool of encrypted near total ReCall enabled itself by default after a stealthy silent download ... RotM-style! (iiuc)

      Apple's tech is impressively asthetically pleasing to be sure, in a swift homomorphically post-quantum encryption kind of way (HE PNNS PIR just purrrs the mind like a fluffy pussy, much unlike that hot-doggin' ReCall), but it remains a faux-pas, even for the elegant crypto-voyeur, to ogle, leer, touch, or upload, without asking for permission first!

      1. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

        ...you doing OK, buddy?

      2. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

        Well, what you wrote is well encrypted, that's for sure. I haven't got a scooby what you're on about, which makes two of us.

      3. Juan Inamillion

        Hello? Is that you amanfrommars?

        Hello? Is that you amanfrommars?

    4. heyrick Silver badge

      Downvoted because Google recognises fuck all in my photos...because astonishingly, despite the frequent nagging, it is possible to disable Google backing everything up to "the cloud" and keep my photos on my device and nowhere else.

      Actually, I lie. Built in heuristics can determine what is a face and what is likely to be a person to allow for stuff like blurring backgrounds. I know it is built-in because it works in airplane mode. Sadly, it does not recognise cats. My little furball The furball that owns this human is the star of my photo collection.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "Downvoted because Google recognises fuck all in my photos...because astonishingly, despite the frequent nagging, it is possible to disable Google backing everything up to "the cloud" and keep my photos on my device and nowhere else."

        I did the full monty and got a de-googled phone. The photos I take with the phone are often shots of things as they get disassembled so I can see how to put them together again and prices at the hardware store so I can cost out a project. If I'm out doing the tourist thing, I'll bring at least my 3rd best DSLR if I'm going to take photos. There's no point in using the much inferior phone camera for a scene I want to capture. I've also learned to put everything down and just enjoy my holidays if capturing photos wasn't part of the plan.

      2. Phil Koenig Bronze badge

        ...it is possible to disable Google backing everything up to "the cloud" and keep my photos on my device and nowhere else.

        Not to worry, every single Google app and online service tracks and collects your personal data like a bloodhound powered by the Sun of 10,000 datacenters, because that's how Google makes 80% of their annual corporate revenue.

        The main difference between Apple and Google in that regard is that Apple's business-model is not so completely reliant on making money by selling products to 3rd parties based on that personal data of yours.

        They collect it mostly for "user convenience" and making it semantically harder to switch platforms due to all that stuff that they "conveniently" keep of yours. Because Apple has successfully managed to transition their platform to a "lifestyle" rather than just a product or technology.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          " is that Apple's business-model is not so completely reliant on making money by selling products to 3rd parties based on that personal data of yours."

          Explain to me again why Apple went from selling computers and stuff to mainly phones?

          1. Phil Koenig Bronze badge

            Explain to me again why Apple went from selling computers and stuff to mainly phones?

            Probably because there is more money to be made in the smartphone market than there is in the PC market.

            Pretty simple.

            The hardware sales revenue globally is over double the sales revenue for PC hardware.

            Furthermore, the software market for smartphones is almost completely funnelled through the two smartphone platform vendors, Google and Apple. Many more software purchases are done directly with the software/games houses for personal computers than is the case with smartphones, the latter of which both Google and Apple get a handsome cut of.

            Lastly, smartphones are a "lifestyle" product that the vast majority of people these days around the world are carrying at least one of. Whereas in many countries in the world, very few people own a personal computer.

            The End.

            https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/devices/pcs/worldwide

            https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/telephony/smartphones/worldwide

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              "Probably because there is more money to be made in the smartphone market than there is in the PC market."

              I was eluding to the harvesting and selling of PII as an addon to the sale of the phone. That's much harder to do with PC's.

              1. Craig 2

                That's much harder to do with PC's.

                err.. Windows 11!!

                Also, I can't help myself but...

                elude - to avoid

                allude - reference indirectly

              2. Handy Plough

                Somebody, much like Jeff Johnson, doesn't understand what homomorphic encryption is...

      3. hitmouse

        My cats and dogs are certainly recognised in Google Photos, although it has trouble distinguishing two of my dogs (same breed, different colours, different head markings) and so keeps labelling photos of one dog with another's name, ten years after it passed away.

        What is more bizarre is that if I have to search through my Google "faces" for a better match, it doesn't separate human from animal faces. However given Google's propensity for releasing consumer software and losing interest ten minutes later, never fixing bugs or upgrading features, perhaps I shouldn't have a surprised face.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge
          Alert

          "and so keeps labelling photos of one dog with another's name, ten years after it passed away."

          It sounds like you need to spend more time training Google's image recognition with your pets, family and friends so it can do a better job.

      4. TRT

        All I know is that for a while Google was uploading many gigabytes of photo data from my phone. In fact about 4 times as much as there were actual photos. It did it from about 1am until 6am, every single day for about two months before I logged into my WAP portal and found the upload graph was hitting max between those times, and only for my phone! An analysis of the traffic destination revealed the culprit.

        Deleted everything Google photos that same day and locked it out of the network.

        They STILL kept resurrecting the photos and nagging me about upcoming unrecoverable deletion for weeks even years afterwards.

    5. Phil Koenig Bronze badge

      Data Abuse Duopoly

      We have basically a mobile platform duopoly and both of them abuse user privacy.

      But Google is well known to be basically the worst personal data abuser in history, at least for a commercial company rather than a nation-state.

      So the choices are abuse, or absolutely egregious abuse.

      Lovely state of affairs.

      Everyone should remember the cyberpunk axiom: Data Wants to be Free.

      Every bit of unnecessarily copied personal data is just another thing that can now eventually fall into the hands of malicious actors.

      Whether that's intentional on the part of the party that surreptitiously absconded with it in the first place (eg adtech companies and malware) or unintentional due to corporate incompetence, excessive profiteering, laziness, nonchalance or corporate miserliness, the end result is the same.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Data Abuse Duopoly

        "Everyone should remember the cyberpunk axiom: Data Wants to be Free."

        It sounds good but is wrong on so many levels.

        Not just "unnecessary" PII, but PII gathered for a legitimate purpose and stored in a database is problematic. There's no gain without some risk and there should be some very severe penalties for databases being breached so companies aren't very keen to hang on to data they really don't need. Jail time for execs and company ending sanctions/fines should be on the table.

    6. cdegroot

      So because allegedly Google does it, it is OK for Apple as well?

    7. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "Meanwhile, Google has been recognizing landmarks in user pictures for a decade"

      With GPS, photo recognition is pointless. If somebody is stood within sight of the Eiffel Tower, chances are that the photo includes the Eiffel tower. It could be the Charles Bridge or the London Eye if the camera also has compass direction to show which way it's pointing. Beyond that, there are gazillions of images tagged with what's in them so if Apple or Google isn't illegally stripping the metadata, it's in there. There is so much out there now that I don't bother making photos of popular places when I travel. I can go on Flickr and find loads that are often much better than mine, so what's the point? I might still grab a snapshot, but I'll not get up at 4am to be at the best spot to get that thing right at sunrise. Somebody will have already done that and I'm not a morning person.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I suppose my Eiffel Tower wallpaper could be an issue

    And that mini Statue of Liberty on the telly…

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I suppose my Eiffel Tower wallpaper could be an issue

      Probably not !!!

      If you read the description in this article it does NOT say that location data from the picture (or phone) is not used.

      It is matching 'images' from your pictures against an index that includes location data.

      It might have a problem with an accurate picture of the Eiffel Tower, on a wall, in a building near to the Eiffel Tower !!!

      WRT Apple/Google and Pals ... "All your data are belong to us" and always will be true [Your permission is only required for PR purposes] !!!

      :)

  4. MacGuffin

    Don't

    "Please don't do that."

    "OK. We'll inform you that we are doing it instead."

    "Don't Do That! We want you to STOP. We do NOT want informed consent instead!"

    "Here's our 'Explanation of Benefits'."

    Wash, rinse, repeat....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't

      You forgot the step where a class action lawsuit where a few lawyers make bank, Apple users get $5 each, and Apple gets fined an amount less than the annual landscaping budget at One Infinite Way.

  5. Aleph0
    Big Brother

    The same argument about scanning for CSAM appiles

    How long before some government tells Apple "since you have demonstrated you have the capability to scan for stuff on your users' phones, you will also search for objectionable content"?

    "Objectionable" as defined by the ruling party, obviously...

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: The same argument about scanning for CSAM appiles

      This technology is purposely designed to NOT be usable for detecting CSAM, because it does everything it can to eliminate any linkage between you as an individual or your particular phone and the data that is examined on the servers. If instead of detecting "this is an Eiffel Tower" it detected "this is CSAM" all it could do is report that information back to your own phone. It could report to the authorities "I found CSAM" but not know if it was on my phone or the phone of a guy across town who spends way too much time hanging around grade schools wearing a trench coat. Obviously the technology could be modified to do otherwise but all the privacy protecting stuff is not making it more likely to be used for CSAM but less likely, since all it can do is hinder that goal.

      The problem as always with CSAM detection is not the detection of actual CSAM. Few are going to defend someone's right to privately molest children. The problem is what happens when it gets it wrong, and it identifies CSAM but it is actually a photo of someone who is not a minor. Then not only is the phone owner's privacy compromised but also that of everyone in the photo, and they possibly get dragged into an investigation when they've done nothing wrong. Or like you say, maybe an incoming administration decides to expand the category of photos to target political adversaries or minorities and threatens the tech companies with damage to their business via targeted tariffs or antitrust breakups into detecting those additional categories while requiring them to not tell anyone.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: The same argument about scanning for CSAM appiles

        "and it identifies CSAM but it is actually a photo of someone who is not a minor. "

        it might be a minor, but an image of something a parent wants their pediatrician to see right away to find out if it requires a scheduled visit or if they should head straight to A&E. The phone has no way of knowing. Parents are also always taking compromising photos they can use later in their kid's lives to embarrass them.

      2. Phil Koenig Bronze badge

        Re: The same argument about scanning for CSAM appiles

        This technology is purposely designed to NOT be usable for detecting CSAM, because it does everything it can to eliminate...

        Well, you really drank the KoolAid, hmm?

        Given Apple's attempt to DO JUST THAT just a few years ago which created a global scandal (LINK), I wouldn't be so sanguine about their intentions or lack of thinking such things through, at this point.

        Fool me once...

  6. jaypyahoo

    Best is to promote and use FOSS Oses like Graphene OS, Lineage, PostmarketOS.

  7. prh99

    AI just needs to die.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "AI just needs to die."

      I expect a lot of it will, but at the expense of a bunch of pension funds that had a strong case of FOMO and got too deep in.

  8. MOH

    Privacy aside, surely there are copyright issues with Apple just appropriating everyone's images without any consent or attribution?

    Oh wait, it's AI training so copyright is irrelevant.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      " without any consent or attribution?"

      Using the images without consent is an issue. Attribution doesn't even enter into it. If you use somebody else's image without their consent and give attribution, you are just telling everybody that you know who you stole it from.

  9. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

    > If it all works as claimed, and there are no side-channels or other leaks

    Two mighty big "if"s there.

  10. heyrick Silver badge

    Is this only USian?

    I'd imagine the GDPR might have something to say about this otherwise.

  11. chivo243 Silver badge
    WTF?

    not much to see

    some obscure lakes in Colorado, mountains - ditto. A random selfie somewhere in the Badlands, and to top it off, our stop at Blue Earth, Mn to see the Jolly Green Giant, and Little Green Sprout.

    Have fun with those Apple!

    Now for the 'Stay off my lawn Apple'

  12. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Why is this any different from iOS automatically identifying similar-looking people on your phone and asking you to name them? It's been doing this for year. It obviously scans through the photos first, and then asks you if you want the feature.

    Yes, Apple should have made a bigger effort to tell people that this is a feature their phones do, but at least they're making the effort to anonymise things and make it private.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      For actual creepiness, they're not that different, that is if you believe Apple's statements about how they've worked to make this feature respect privacy. I actually do believe them on this one. However, the important distinction and the reason why there are different reactions is that the facial recognition thing runs on your device and landmark detection doesn't. Landmark detection requires that parts of your images be copied to a server, and they chose to do that copying without asking. Even though I don't think they intended to or are actually doing anything on that server that I am worried about, it isn't something they should be doing without asking the users first. Doing something similar on the device is potentially unwanted, but it doesn't involve copying off data, so it can be on by default.

  13. benderama

    They’re not sucking up your data.. they have a list of hashes for different landmarks (Eiffel tower, Sydney opera house). AI on your phone looks for potential landmarks. The AI and the servers talk. Yes it’s a landmark. No it’s not. They don’t keep track of what landmarks are on a device, they don’t track who was there. They don’t know if you were there with your wife or your girlfriend (or both!)

    They could tweak it so the landmark hashes are in your local AI. This may be in an attempt to ensure we’re all matching against the same data for better results integrity

    1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

      Using my power, equipment, bandwidth and IP without my authorization? What do we call that again?

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        re: what do we call that/

        Real Life I'm afraid.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "They don’t know if you were there with your wife or your girlfriend (or both!)"

      Yes they do. If you've tagged photos on FB or people you let take photos of you have, FB knows who you are, and who they are. If they have a web bug on your "traveling partner's" phone...... They know that the two of you know each other and are on holiday in close proximity. Funny that your spouse is not there.

      I can't say they are analyzing data for that sort of thing, but it's not a matter of whether they are, but if they can.

      1. Zolko Silver badge

        This happened to me and a friend on Strava : we made a walk together, using Strava, but without each knowing about the other on Strava. After the walk, the App asked me whether I had made the walk with Andrew (*), as it recognized the same path and same time.

        (*) his actual name

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          "App asked me whether I had made the walk with Andrew (*), as it recognized the same path and same time."

          That's the sort of thing that should scare the crap out of you.

  14. Juan Inamillion

    More importantly..

    I and most of my friends absolutely hate what Apple has done to it’s iOS Photos app in the latest upgrade.

  15. cdegroot

    Closed source encryption is not encryption. Period.

  16. hitmouse

    "Airforce base in Afghanistan", "military compound in Ukraine", "drone target in Soontobeblastedoutofexistan"

  17. boatsman

    I do not believe 1 word of

    Apples bona fide intentions.

    Why would they search without including time, date and location?

    It is absurd to believe that.

    What makes them think they can use my bandwidth?

    Nothing.

    Time to rip them for at least a cool 10.000 euro p phone. Per photo.

    That will teach these thieves, and criminals.

  18. Ken Rennoldson
    Boffin

    Technically impressive though

    Without arguing with the rest of the comments here (I agree with most of them) it does seem to be a very impressive achievement. I looked at Homomorphic Encryption a few years ago and run times 100,000,000 longer than on unencrypted data was a bit of a stumbling block, So even keeping the volume of data to process to a minimum, producing results in near real time is a very impressive feat - at least to me!

    But I do wonder how easy it is to crack the encryption, compared to AES256. Anyone know?

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