Google Accidentally Sent Videos to Strangers When Exporting
Google accidentally sent personal videos from users of the Photos app to the wrong users. That happened when they retrieved their data via Google Takeout. It is not known for how many users that occurred.
The company confirms this to Tweakers. Several users have received a warning from Google that their videos have accidentally ended up with other users. That happened when using Google Takeout. This is a service where users can export all their Google data.
In Google Takeout, it is also possible to download all photos and videos that have been uploaded in Google Photos.
Google is now sending alerts to affected users. The incident happened to users who used Google Takeout between November 21 and November 25 last year.
“Some videos have been exported to the archives of unrelated users,” writes Google in the mail. It is about “one or more videos in someone’s account.” Photos have not been exchanged incorrectly.
Google also says that users may have received an incomplete archive, or that they have received data from other users. It is not known exactly how many users were affected by the bug.
According to a spokesperson, this is “less than 0.01 percent of all Google Photos users.” The company says it has now identified and solved the problem.