News Insights: Google bug saw videos sent to archives of the wrong users | ZDNet

Google has reached out to users to apologize after a “technical issue” saw videos uploaded to another user’s archives. In an email, the search engine giant said the issue affected the Google “download your data” service — called Google Takeout — for Google Photos in November last year.

News Insights:

Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate with Comparitech, commented:

“The irony is that many Google Takeout users download their data and subsequently remove it from Google servers because they don’t trust Google to protect it for them. Now the action they took to improve their privacy has had the exact opposite effect. Perhaps the worst part is that users have no clue as to whether another person is now in possession of their photos or videos, and no recourse to get them back. Users who downloaded data through Google Takeout should go through their photos and videos to see if there’s anything that could be harmful to them in the wrong hands, be it nude photos or important documents. From there, all they can do is prepare for the worst—extortion, identity theft, etc—and hope for the best.”