Google has confirmed that some people who used its takeout service to download a copy of their data last year accidentally shared content from their Google Photo account with strangers.
As androidpolice reports, the technical problem occurred from last November, but Google is only now alerting potentially affected users via email. The problem was with videos, not pictures. These were accidentally exported to other users archives if they accidentally backed up their content at the same time.
Google Photo Accounts Were Affected
Affected users received rather emails simply informing them that one or more videos in your Google Photo account were affected by this issue without specifying which or how many people had access. Google also points out that the backups downloaded during this period may be incomplete. So it’s worth checking and saving them again to make sure there are no snapshots missing from your archives. Google says that an in-depth analysis could determine the cause of the problem and to make sure it didn’t recur. Only a tiny fraction of Google Photos users were affected by the error and the company solved the problem after a few days. It is currently still uncertain whether other users will be among those affected. According to Google, less than 0.01 percent of Google Photos users were affected. The company was initially unable or unwilling to say whether other users were among them. Since July, the photo service has more than a billion users, less than 0.01 percent among 100,000 users.
The Problem Should Now Be Solved
According to Google, the export problem has now been solved. The company has also launched an investigation to determine the causes of the failure. Google apologizes for the mistake and asks everyone who has received videos from other users to delete these clips. Nobody can control whether this really happens at this point.
