Google Photos Videos Were Shared With Strangers

Google has confirmed videos saved in your Google Photos account could have been sent to a stranger because of a “technical issue.”

As reported by 9to5Google(Opens in a new window), the issue was rooted in Google’s Takeout service which is designed to let people download their data. However, from Nov. 21 to Nov. 25 last year those backups could have had videos that “incorrectly exported to unrelated users’ archives.”

Whoa, what? @googlephotos(Opens in a new window)? pic.twitter.com/2cZsABz1xb(Opens in a new window)

— Jon Oberheide (@jonoberheide) February 4, 2020(Opens in a new window)

Even though some videos could have been shared with other people, Google has not been specific as to which videos were shared. Instead, the tech giant says that “one or more videos in your Google Photos account was affected by this issue.”

In a statement, Google said: “We are notifying people about a bug that may have affected users who used Google Takeout to export their Google Photos content between November 21 and November 25. These users may have received either an incomplete archive, or videos—not photos—that were not theirs. We fixed the underlying issue and have conducted an in-depth analysis to help prevent this from ever happening again. We are very sorry this happened.”

Google also says that the issue affected less than 0.01 percent of Photos users attempting Takeouts, and no other product was affected. However, since Google Photos has over one billion users(Opens in a new window), even such a small percentage means around 100,000 people potentially had their videos shared with strangers.

Google is reportedly launching another messaging app…again