How QuickLook Preview doesn’t tell Apple about images
Since I published my detailed explanation of why there are reports that macOS might appear to send Apple details of images you browse in the Finder, rumour has continued unabated. Most recently, while agreeing with my conclusions, @mysk has claimed this was the result of a bug, and has been fixed in macOS 13.2. This article looks at just what does happen in Live Text, and what it’s doing contacting Apple.
The story so far is of a single claim that, when browsing images in Ventura’s Finder, mediaanalysisd tried to make an outgoing connection to an Apple server, as revealed by the software firewall Little Snitch. Following replication of that by using QuickLook Preview, I then demonstrated that the outgoing connection was performed during image analysis for Live Text. Thus the facts are:
This is fully consistent with Apple’s most recent statement on checking images for CSAM, as reported late last year in Wired, but carefully omitted by those spreading rumours. Specifically, Apple is there reported as stating: “We have further decided to not move forward with our previously proposed CSAM detection tool for iCloud Photos. Children can be protected without companies combing through personal data, and we will continue working with governments, child advocates, and other companies to help protect young people, preserve their right to privacy, and make the internet a safer place for children and for us all.”
