title: Google: Oops, we may have sent your private Google Photos videos to strangers
url: https://mashable.com/article/google-photos-videos-glitch/
hash_url: 3146f1a5743de3217adc3bc854897aaf

<p>Well, this is awkward. </p>
<p>Google has recently notified Google Photos users that due to a "technical issue," in Google Photos, some users' private videos were "incorrectly exported to unrelated users' archives," <a href="https://9to5google.com/2020/02/03/google-photos-video-strangers/" target="_blank">9to5Google</a> reported Monday. </p>
<p>The technical glitch happened on Nov. 21, 2019, and was fixed four days later, on Nov. 25, and it apparently only affected users who used Google Takeout to request a "Download your data" export, which included content stored in Google Photos. </p>
<p>On the flipside, users who downloaded their data now possibly have someone else's videos in their archive (which, by the way, may be incomplete). </p>
<p>The number of users who used Google Takeout to download their data in that five-day period is relatively small; Google told 9to5Google that only 0.01 percent of Photos users attempting Takeouts were affected. Still, with Google Photos being near omnipresent on Android phones — Google <a href="https://9to5google.com/2019/07/24/google-photos-billion-users/" target="_blank">said</a> it had over a billion users last July — even that number isn't negligible. </p>

<p>Google says the issue is fixed and that it "conducted an in-depth analysis to help prevent this from ever happening again." Affected users were notified of the glitch, together with an apology from Google, and a suggestion to "perform another export of your content and delete your prior export at this time."</p>
