This is not good. Not good at all. If you're an Apple product user, you need to be aware the most recent iOS update has a major issue: it seems, for some users at least, to restore old, deleted pics.
YIKES.
Many People are reporting an issue where an ios update has brought back pictures they deleted years ago.
— James Abev (@James_Abev) May 15, 2024
If this is true then this would be the biggest blow to Apple's user privacy claims! pic.twitter.com/VvYbBVDIDr
Pictures deleted years ago.
Double yikes.
Ooof it doesn't sound like it's an icloud problem.
— James Abev (@James_Abev) May 15, 2024
If what this reddit user is saying is true then this is so much worse! pic.twitter.com/2poPQNpYXS
This makes it even worse.
have you had old deleted photos reappear on your iPhone or iPad after installing the latest 17.5 update? Apple appears to have a major bug right now that’s bringing back deleted photos from years ago 😵 https://t.co/nLAGKh9G5F
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) May 17, 2024
Apple appears to have a bug that’s dredging up data that iPhone owners thought was gone. Some iPhone owners are reporting that, after updating their phones to iOS 17.5, their deleted photos — some quite old — are popping up again, according to a Reddit thread that MacRumors spotted. iOS beta testers had the same complaints about the bug last week.
People reporting the apparent bug say that they’re seeing old photos appear in their Recents album after Monday’s update. iOS does give users the option to restore deleted photos, but after 30 days, they’re supposed to be permanently removed.
The person who started the thread claimed that NSFW photos they had deleted “years ago” were back on their phone. Another Reddit user said that they saw photos from 2016 show up as new images but that they didn’t think they’d ever deleted them. And a person claimed in a later post that “around 300” of their old pictures, some of which were “revealing,” appeared on an iPad they’d wiped per Apple’s guidelines and sold to a friend.
Well, that's not good.
All it takes is a bug.
— Macroblock (@sainimatic) May 15, 2024
Tech companies have no reason to delete anything. Data is gold, storage is cheap.
Even if they do, all their data is automatically backed up to archival magnetic tapes (LTOs) which are physically stored in vaults.
In the cloud, there is no delete.
Caveat emptor.
Buyer beware.
Normal file system delete isn’t really delete, at least on most file systems. Odd though, they’d usually be overwritten… I wonder if they were accidentally restored from the cloud? Anyone know what’s actually going on technically?
— Michael Tomlinson ✨ (@mikejt4) May 16, 2024
Well, here's a possible explanation:
Probably simpler than you’d think. I imagine they synced to iCloud and then synced device. The photo probably got perm deleted off iCloud and the primary device but the secondary device still had the photo and synced it back since it never found the photo.
— FutureMapper ᯅ (@Futuremapper_) May 15, 2024
That’s my assumption.
Well, this could be something that's fixed. Apple needs to get on this.
Yo mine did just that! I thought it was weird but thought it was some sort of iCloud issue. Wow!
— Elyi 🦋 (@Elyi1M) May 15, 2024
Wow is putting it mildly.
People delete pics for a reason, and usually it's because they never want to see them again.
I got photos back that are now in order 'latest' added to my album stream, that were taken in 2016. On an iphone 6.
— Ian McGinley (@parawolf) May 16, 2024
We're on the iPhone 15 now, FYI.
— アーマナトゥラ (@aamanatullah) May 17, 2024
The perfect meme.
A reminder that Apple's "privacy" marketing is just that, marketing. Now consider where all that data is going, to train yet another AI they'll claim protects your information. https://t.co/x9nGucyZIF
— Theo (@tprstly) May 16, 2024
We have a feeling this might cause problems for Apple in the very near future.
This is so wrong on so many level https://t.co/evlsUK7KVW
— Kat Loveland Voice Actor (@kat_loveland) May 17, 2024
So wrong.
"Privacy" is when you and your lover steal away to the banks of a forgotten bend in the river at dusk. And that ended permanently sometime around 2005. https://t.co/tW1JJLeARD
— 𝕛 𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕠𝕥 (@j_elliot_art) May 16, 2024
Yes, it did.
It's so important to encrypt sensitive information. https://t.co/GBmwjHQFPe
— Squeaky (@SqueakyBlum) May 16, 2024
Might be helpful.
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