On November 21st 2019, a “technical glitch” occurred, according to internet giant Google. From the 21st to the 24th, when users downloaded their data through Google Takeout, there was a chance that they opened themselves up to having others accidentally receive their backed up photos by mistake. Conversely, you may have received other people’s photos if you used the service, effectively losing your own. Google reports that the glitch only affected “0.01 percent” of users, according to an article on Mashable. As the author of the article Schroeder notes, with “over a billion users” 0.01 percent isn’t all that small.
Glitches will happen. This is an inevitability of software development. The applications can’t perform perfectly all of the time, and developers can’t predict everything a user may encounter. What is in important, is how these glitches are handled. It would be fascinating to see how truly transparent Google is being. Did they truly find out about the exploit four days after it happened? Was the first occurrence really on the 21st? Is telling those affected to delete their current photo export and to delete their botched one truly enough? I truly believe we are going through the worst of our growing pains when it comes to internet use and the privacy of what it is used for. I don’t know if Google should remotely go in and forcefully delete all exports by affected users. This would, of course, eliminate the chance of someone having hold of intimate and private photos you posted to the app, but would it invade on the rights of the users? In this case, I am inclined to say that the above action is warranted. Google messed up, and needs to be responsible for taking action and correcting the mistake. I know for sure that when left in the hands of the end user, more damage can be done that could have been mitigated if taken into the hands of the developers. I do however think that this line of thinking needs to be grounded. It needs to be case-by-case.
We are living in not just a hyper-connected but overly-connected world. There is little choice in privacy today. You either engage with the world and lost all sense of intimacy and privacy, or you live in almost absolute isolation. We have trended towards this way of living for over a decade, and we are long overdue with both moral obligation and legally binding legislation that guides us through issues such as a company giving away your private data. Google should not only be held responsible, but hold a deep obligation to make things right. You can easily ruin an innocent persons life with the type of personal pictures one might find on an app like Google Takeout, and it takes little effort or even malice to go down that path. All it takes is a single post.
Article Source: https://mashable.com/article/google-photos-videos-glitch/
Social Structures & Algorithms 