Google Photos: private videos have been sent to other users

Publié le 05/02/2020

Bad weather on the Google side and more precisely at Google Photos. Indeed, the photo and video storage service of the Mountain View firm would have mistakenly shared videos with users who were not concerned by them. And even if the problem is solved, the damage is already done.

A problem that affected Google Takeout

It all started with the Google Takeout service, which allows users to upload their data to several of the company’s services, including Google Photos. Between November 21 and 25, some users used Google Takeout to retrieve photos and videos from Google Photos. And that’s when the service got tangled up: some people retrieved videos in their archives that didn’t belong to them.

Google assures that this problem only affects a very small portion of users. The people affected by this bug have already received an email explaining the problem. Mountain View recommends that users who have retrieved videos from other people should delete them, but there is no way to verify that this request is being followed.

While Google Photos is known as an easy and free way to save photos and videos, the service is not without risks. Users’ privacy is at stake and it would not be surprising to see some people removing their photos from Google Photos to try to find a safer alternative.

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