Homomorphic-based Enhanced Visual Search is so privacy-preserving, iPhone giant activated it without asking

I have never liked Apple and lately even less. F… US monopolies

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Apple opted customers in, got sued, and will now prompt customers if they want to be opted in or out.

    • Anticorp@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      And if there’s a class action lawsuit then it’ll be $95 million settlement spread out over 1.46 billion customers (this just happened over Siri spying).

  • dubyakay@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    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 [your] IP address. This prevents Apple from learning about the information in your photos. You can turn off Enhanced Visual Search at any time on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Apps > Photos. On Mac, open Photos and go to Settings > General.

    Apple did explain the technology in a technical paper published on October 24, 2024, around the time that Enhanced Visual Search is believed to have debuted. A local machine-learning model analyzes photos to look for a “region of interest” that may depict a landmark. If the AI model finds a likely match, it calculates a vector embedding – an array of numbers – representing that portion of the image.

    So it’s local. And encrypted. How is this really news? Am I missing something?

  • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    I don’t even get it. Like, make a pop up with a short blurb explaining the feature. Most users will probably opt in, and you don’t piss off the ones that don’t want this.

    • solomon42069@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Hey let’s be clear that has nothing to do with Apple. Tim Cook is a gay man who doesn’t want himself or his family to be lynched by Trump’s wandering gangs of violent homophobic and racist thugs. That wasn’t a donation - it was protection money.

        • solomon42069@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Fair. Maybe if he’d given some of Apple’s ill gotten gains to gay organisations we wouldn’t be here!

      • reddig33@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think it was his end run around Apple donating the money directly which would have been a complete disaster. I don’t think Cook supports trump in a “rah rah” sort of way, but knows if the company doesn’t pay him suck up money, it will come back to haunt them later.

        Either way, it’s still gross.

          • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            In pretty sure Xiaomi don’t pay Trump. But, you never really know.

            What we do really know, is Apple do. Spending with Apple is spending with Trump, guaranteed.

              • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                And, we can try and avoid them. Or, we can pay trump through them.

                There are so many android manufacturers that wouldn’t even spit in trumps direction. The choice is there. It can be taken. Or, we can shrug, find excuses, and just give Trump our money through apple (in this example).

                • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Yes, this is bigger than just phones. PLENTY of other combines donated to him.

                  You are avoiding those companies too, right?

  • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    In case anyone came to the comments looking for directions on how to opt out:

    1. Go to Settings. 2) Scroll down and select “Photos.” 3) Locate the “Enhanced Visual Search” option. Turn off the toggle.
    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Nah, they’re just checking to see if you guys are well proportioned or maybe you need something they can sell you. For example, new clothes? Dave, isn’t that the same jacket you always wear to work? You need a new one! Here are some options from Walmart, we’ll just hide them here behind this thing you’re browsing about right now… How about here too! And here!

  • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    For-profit companies are perpetually locked in a conflict of interest. Inevitably, they will have to decide between what is in the best interest of their users (or other public interests such as the environment for example) with their never-ending obsession to make ever more money. No matter what they say or do publicly, they will always sell out for more profit.

    In this case, a bunch of Silicon Valley investors (people who have collectively made trillions over every iteration of IT progress) are forcing “AI” to be the next thing. They have basically decided that they want all tech progress to focus on this area and are forcing every company they invest in to make that happen, regardless of the societal impact.

    As a result, you can see clearly that all of these companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Reddit) are basing all their business decisions into trying to make this fantasy become a reality. Even Apple now, the masters of creating a facade of privacy is falling straight into line. And the one thing they all have in common: investors.

    And that is why you should always be wary of interacting with big business interests - they will inevitably sell you out someday.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Somehow I am much less scared of AI being forced into everything compared to VR or crypto.

      I guess it’s because I know AI is a nothing burger and will slowly lose hype.

      • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        While I agree that the AI they will implement will likely not be very effective, it doesn’t have to be to cause massive human suffering. Eg. Google incorrectly marking exposed photos of your kid for your doctor as CSAM. There’s also no guarantee that once these companies finally wake the fuck up (If they’re not already completely aware what they’re doing is messed up) that they will close these holes they’re punching, and that could mean they could replace AI with a mass surveillance tool at any point without you knowing. Nobody should be a fan of this.

  • jqubed@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Apple is being thoughtful about doing this in a (theoretically) privacy-preserving way, but I don’t think the company is living up to its ideals here,” observed software developer Michael Tsai in an analysis shared Wednesday. “Not only is it not opt-in, but you can’t effectively opt out if it starts uploading metadata about your photos before you even use the search feature. It does this even if you’ve already opted out of uploading your photos to iCloud.”

    Reading the article, the service itself is interesting and it sounds like Apple might have found a way to process the data while preserving user privacy, but the fact that they unilaterally opted everyone in without giving them a choice is the biggest problem.

    • Anticorp@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      That’s Apple though. “We know what you want better than you do” is almost a company mantra.

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Not almost, it just is. It is the winning strategy right now. Everyone who is doing it gains massive profits somehow. Money speaks for itself, isn’t it?

        • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          I doubt every company who shits on it’s user’s privacy and their preferred experience is gaining massive profits right now, we’re just discussing the successful ones. I think the two leading factors in this scenario are “Brand Recognition” and “double dipping into as many aspects as possible with your user’s data.” The whole ‘if it’s free’, apple is definitely getting a kick back sending all this data to them even if it’s “secure”.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
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      2 months ago

      Agreed, I’m not an Apple fan, but the headline is vague enough to make things seem worse than they are.

  • Jinni@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Never accept the technology just because it is optional. Eventually it will become default and eventually maditory.

  • Anticorp@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 months ago

    To what end? They claim they can’t read the data, nor the output, nor where it originated from. So… what’s the point? If their claims are true then what is the point of all that data transfer, processing, and the massive engineering efforts they’ve put into it? If it’s just so they can tag a location, then they could have just used geo location on the device without sharing anything. If it’s to be able to search for " Eiffel Tower" and see pictures you have of it, well, haven’t they already been able to do this before this feature with on-board AI processing that doesn’t require the data to be shipped to Apple? Something seems off to me, but maybe because I’m not clear on the purpose.

    • kadup@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They already had this type of local processing for years, I believe it was introduced on iOS 9 (perhaps earlier). You can already search “mountain” or “Eiffel tower” or “dog running” and it will work. So if they’re now doing AI processing externally, they’re certainly doing it for different reasons. My bet is they’re collecting personal data regardless of what the ToS claims, and that they’re for sure training AI models on users’ pictures.

      • Anticorp@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        That was my suspicion too, but I didn’t want to come right out and say it without more information