Does Apple Intelligence Scan Your Photos?
Yes, your iPhone analyses your photos, but Apple says it happens on the device. Face recognition, scene detection and Memories run on your iPhone, and Apple says this works "without accessing your photos". A few features send limited data off the phone, and you can check or turn them off.
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What do I need to know?
- Most analysis is on device. Apple says face, scene and object detection in Photos never happens in the cloud.
- Some requests go to Apple's servers. Complex Apple Intelligence requests can use Private Cloud Compute.
- You can see and limit it. iOS 27 has a report of server requests and per-feature switches.
What does Photos analyse on my iPhone?
Apple's privacy features page says: "Face recognition and scene and object detection are done completely on your device rather than in the cloud." Memories and Sharing Suggestions also use on-device analysis.
Apple says that because this happens on the device, it can offer these features "without accessing your photos". If you turn off iCloud Photos, on-device analysis still works.
What does Apple Intelligence send off the phone?
Apple says that "in many cases, Apple Intelligence models run entirely on device". For bigger requests it can use Private Cloud Compute, which runs on Apple's servers.
Apple's Apple Intelligence and privacy page says data processed there "is not stored or made accessible to Apple". It also says independent researchers can inspect the server code.
Apple Intelligence on iOS 27 needs an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or an iPhone 16 or later.
What about Enhanced Visual Search?
This is a separate Photos feature, available since iOS 18. It matches landmarks in your photos against Apple's list. Your iPhone sends an encrypted "low-fidelity mathematical representation" of part of a photo, not the photo.
Apple's Enhanced Visual Search page says it uses homomorphic encryption and a relay that hides your IP address. If you would rather nothing leaves the phone, you can turn it off.
How do I check or limit it on iOS 27?
- Turn off Enhanced Visual Search. Settings → Apps → Photos, scroll down, turn off Enhanced Visual Search.
- See what went to Apple's servers. Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Intelligence Report. Choose the last 15 minutes or 7 days, then tap Export Activity.
- Turn off individual features. Apple lists each switch on its page to turn off Apple Intelligence features.
The report may be empty if nothing has been sent since you set the time range.
Does any of this see photos in a vault app?
Photos analyses your Photos library. A vault app keeps its files outside that library, so Photos does not index them.
In Cryptile, photos are stored as AES-256-GCM ciphertext. Search inside the vault (Plus) reads text from photos and PDFs on your device when you add them. The results stay inside the encrypted vault.
What this doesn't protect against
On-device analysis still sorts your library by faces and places, and anyone who opens Photos on your unlocked phone sees the results. Turning features off does not encrypt anything. Your photos in iCloud are protected by Apple's encryption, and Apple holds the keys unless you use Advanced Data Protection.
Do it with Cryptile
Cryptile keeps the photos you choose out of your library and encrypted under a key made from a pattern you draw. There is no account and no server, and the developer never holds your keys.
Cryptile is free for up to 2 vaults, 100 photos and 10 videos. Plus adds search inside the vault and the panic pattern for $19.99 a year (7-day free trial) or $39.99 once.