How Apple Uses Machine Learning to Recognize People in Photos

Apple has published a post detailing how it uses machine learning to recognize people in photos.

The task of recognizing people in user-generated content is inherently challenging because of the sheer variability in the domain. People can appear at arbitrary scales, lighting, pose, and expression, and the images can be captured from any camera. When someone wants to view all their photos of a specific person, a comprehensive knowledge graph is needed, including instances where the subject is not posing for the image. This is especially true in photography of dynamic scenes, such as capturing a toddler bursting a bubble, or friends raising a glass for a toast.

Apple notes that its latest hardware and iOS 15 can make use of on-device processing to significantly improve person recognition.


This latest advancement, available in Photos running iOS 15, significantly improves person recognition. As shown in Figure 8, using private, on-device machine learning we can correctly recognize people with extreme poses, accessories, or even occluded faces and use the combination of face and upper body to match people whose faces are not visible at all. This significantly improves the Photos experience by identifying the people who matter most to us in situations where it was previously impossible.

Hit the link below for the full explanation of how Apple recognizes people in photos...

Read More [via MacRumors]