Epic fail: Google sent private videos in Google Photos to strangers

Google Photos
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

People using Google's “Download your data” service got “one or more videos” sent to “unrelated users,“ Google announced in an email message sent to affected users yesterday (Feb. 3). 

Jon Oberheide — CTO at Duo Security — said on Twitter that he had received an email from Google warning that his data may have been compromised after he'd used Google’s "Download your data" service. That's an export option provided by Google so users can download data stored in its servers to their computers.

Google says that anyone who used this service between Nov. 21, 2019 and Nov. 25, 2019, may have gotten videos from other users in the archive file they received and “one or more” of their videos may have been sent to other users.

Here’s the complete email message:

(Image credit: Google)

What Google isn't telling us is how many people may have been affected or how many private videos may have been shared with the incorrect people.

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Jesus Diaz

Jesus Diaz founded the new Sploid for Gawker Media after seven years working at Gizmodo, where he helmed the lost-in-a-bar iPhone 4 story and wrote old angry man rants, among other things. He's a creative director, screenwriter, and producer at The Magic Sauce, and currently writes for Fast Company and Tom's Guide.

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