Google Admits Some Private Videos in Google Photos Were Sent to Strangers

Google has emailed some users of Google Photos to inform them that some of their private videos were accidentally sent to strangers, reports 9to5Google.

The "technical issue" is said to have affected people who used the Google Takeout service to download their data between November 21 and November 25 last year. The problem resulted in a small number of users receiving videos in their archive that weren't theirs.

Google said that only 0.01 percent of Google ‌Photos‌ users attempting Takeouts were affected. But given that it has previously boasted of having over 1 billion Photos users, that number is still significant.

According to Google, the technical issue has been fixed and it has "conducted an in-depth analysis to help prevent this from ever happening again."

The tech giant apologized for the inconvenience caused to affected users and advised them to delete their last Takeout export, then perform another download of their ‌Photos‌ content.

Tags: Google, Google Photos

Top Rated Comments

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DaveOP

2 weeks ago

I agree, what alternatives? I work in a school district with 4,000+ students & staff. Non-free systems would get exceedingly expensive, as is the infrastructure needed for in-house e-mail systems. Plus, with the amount of services included (Email, Docs/Drive, Classroom, etc.), and how so many 3-rd party web sites have a "Log-in with Google" system, it's difficult to find an inexpensive and interconnected system to do all that.

It's free in the sense that your data and profile pay for it. You have to weigh your privacy against the costs of a more secure system.

Rating: 6 Votes

ck2875

2 weeks ago

Well hopefully no one was storing their sexy time videos on there.

Rating: 5 Votes

CarlJ

2 weeks ago

What is a good alternative to gmail that is free to use and comes with as much storage?

Why insist it be free? Storage costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Servers cost money. Upkeep/admin costs money. Electricity costs money. If you want all that "for free", then you're the product, not the customer, and the provider is going to sell you, and/or access to you, to the highest bidder.

You can get paid email service from many sources for not that much money.

If you've paid for an iOS or macOS device, you can get an email account from Apple with some storage, for no additional cost. And Apple isn't selling your information or access to you (the email is a value-added bit that's part of the "Apple Tax" that people complain about). If you want more storage, Apple will rent it to you for a very modest price.

Rating: 5 Votes

Solomani

2 weeks ago

Google, Facebook, *******. Is there really any difference any more? :cool:

Rating: 5 Votes

darkpaw

2 weeks ago

Only .01%? That's till 100,000 people.

Ah, the good ol' trick of talking about the lower number because the larger number would be more damaging.

Rating: 5 Votes

Crowbot

2 weeks ago

Honestly, with all the alternatives, I don't get why people still use Google.

Rating: 5 Votes

Crowbot

2 weeks ago

Only .01%? That's till 100,000 people.

Rating: 4 Votes

Crowbot

2 weeks ago

Because it is simply the best option. Google has richer content, free storage is larger than any "alternative" and offers you more, you can create blogs, host, share, collaborate, edit remotely, use full-blown spreadsheet and word processor.

Google leads in storage, email, mapping, services, searches, and yes, it is free for the end user. Can you get it now?
[automerge]1580832658[/automerge]

Yes but "free" also has a cost. Would you be willing to pay for it to get some more data privacy?

Rating: 4 Votes

MauiPa

2 weeks ago

They were just exposing a security vulnerability so they could shame the owner, then they realized the owner was google. Oops!

Rating: 4 Votes

zorinlynx

2 weeks ago

Shouldn't personal videos you store in the cloud be encrypted with your own encryption key/password, which should make this impossible? I know Apple encrypts things like this with iCloud; I'm surprised Google doesn't.

I guess this further cements my distrust in Google. Your stuff is in cleartext on their servers somewhere, ready to be mishandled at any time!

Rating: 3 Votes

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