Google confirms ‘Ask Photos’ is missing for some, maybe that’s why

Google’s AI-powered Ask Photos and conversational editing features make up a large part of the Pixel lineup and other Android devices, but some reports indicate that these features are missing. This might have something to do with Google’s “face clustering” feature.

Some users in Illinois and Texas are discovering that Ask Photos in the Google Photos app is missing from their state. Likewise, it seems that conversational editing is also missing. According to a report from Houston ChronicleIllinois and Texas appear to be the two losing states in terms of Google Photos’ AI features.

A number of affected users have reportedly indicated that they meet all the requirements set by Google for users to access Ask Photos. The same requirements extend to Google’s conversational editing, which lets you discuss your editing ideas and let Gemini do the rest.

These requirements include being over 18 years old, residing in the United States, and having face pooling enabled.

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Grouping faces, however, is a tricky thing that may be the cause of Google’s Ask Photos tool missing. This is an opt-in feature that allows Google Photos to store facial geometry data in order to identify and group matching faces. It is used to search and tag faces in phone galleries. It sounds scary, but it improves the user gallery experience with features based on familiar topics. Conversational editing relies on it to enhance people’s faces based on past images, and Ask Photos uses it to identify those people in its results.

Google’s selectively missing Ask Photos app relies heavily on face clustering to answer contextual queries on users’ galleries, and the contextual editing tool needs face data to edit photos with reference to existing face clusters. Face grouping seems to be such an integral part that it seems the feature cannot be used at all in regions that have such stipulations.

Face groups are not available in Illinois and Texas, Google said. When the Houston Chronicle When we contacted Google, we received this general statement:

The ability to ask Photos to edit your images is not currently available for users in Texas and Illinois. We are working to determine how to make Ask Photos accessible to more users.

Google clearly states that Ask Photos is not available in all regions on its help page for this feature. Users are then directed to the requirements above.

Texas settled a lawsuit with Google filed in 2022 regarding face groups. Another lawsuit in Illinois claimed that Google violated the “Biometric Information Privacy Act” since the tool did not directly inform users about the storage of their biometric data. This is difficult because when images are captured, they are usually not taken by the subject in the photo. The faces stored are often not those who might agree to the terms and conditions; therefore, Google could not reasonably ensure that individuals knew their data was being stored.

Illinois and Texas appear to have standing policies that Google’s face clustering tool still doesn’t follow.

Google also notes that users must enable “location estimates” to use the features. Even if face pooling is enabled, as some users have confirmed, Google may still block Ask Photos if the device is found to be in certain states or regions where it has been blocked from storing biometric data.

The lack of Ask Photos and conversational editing isn’t the first time Google Pixel and Android users have found themselves missing core features. The different privacy policies in Europe and Canada have left users without. As AI has become a larger part of the company’s product line, this seems to be happening more often.

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