Comment by jl6
1 month ago
I imagine Apple might argue that no private information is sent thanks to the use of homomorphic encryption. But Apple’s explanation rings hollow without the user having the ability to verify that this system is working as described.
It's not just users having the ability to verify it but also the users comprehending it in the first place. Sending something somewhere without the recipient being able to do anything they please with that information is highly unintuitive, and I don't see homomorphic encryption becoming popular anytime soon.
In a bit of personal news, in a previous job I once worked on doing something similarly private to user's browsing history, that is, the browsing history is sent to the server without the server being able to capture or store it. I was the tech lead for writing a prototype, but the whole idea was then vetoed by a VP.
Users have no meaningful way to verify that their data is genuinely protected