Access face tags

macOS Photos allows me to tag people that are in my photos. Is there anyway to access these tags via PHAssest or someother mechanism?

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prestoCaleb
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No, there is not an API to access people data in PhotoKit as of now.
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Jordan
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Apple seems to be saving the face tag as EXIF, under prefix IIO. Where you can find x,y w, h, type, confidence level and face id which is a number. However the name of the person isn't stored. I assume, face id gets matched for a name in Photos app db.
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protosphere
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  • Hi, can you share how you retrieve the EXIF data with the IIO prefix? I exported the photo from Mac Photos and couldn't find those meta info using things like exiftool or Preview... any hints? Billy

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    billylo
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There's no public API to do this, and Apple actually goes to specific lengths to prevent accessing face/person information using PhotoKit. Even using private APIs, access to that info is denied to third party apps, presumably due to security/privacy concerns. So, I wouldn't expect them to add this anytime in the foreseeable future.
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bwebster
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