Privacy of Photos.app’s Enhanced Visual Search

This post reflects on recent research about integrating AI with end-to-end encryption, arguing that device-side AI interacting with server databases can leak user intent and that homomorphic encryption (e.g., RAM-FHE/DEPIR) could theoretically mitigate this but remains impractical due to efficiency and side-channel concerns. The author concludes that privacy-preserving device-side scanning anchored to a central database is not currently viable in practice.