Photo Library downloading deleted photos and concerns about privacy?
There was an old thread (Photo Library on Windows downloading deleted photos) in 2016 discussing this issue but that topic was closed. I'll recap it here and ask the community if there's a fix or workaround since Apple hasn't fixed the problem.
To me this seems like a HUGE privacy issue. If deleted photos (even after being permanently deleted manually) and those that auto expire after 30 days are not, in fact, being removed from Apple servers then how is that not a major issue that needs to be addressed?
Edit to add:
The reason I'm starting a new thread on this is because when I select "download all photos" in the iCloud app on Windows 10 (latest version of both iCloud and Windows 10), it downloads every photo I've ever taken. It doesn't matter if it was deleted months ago, or manually "permanently deleted", or auto deleted after 30 days. Every photo is still there. They don't show up on www.ICloud.com or on any of my iDevices in the Photo Library or in the Recently Deleted folder.
Recap from closed thread:
Just installed the new iCloud control panel on my Windows 10 machine and turned on Photo Library so I have my photos downloaded to my PC.
I was very surprised that it downloaded old photos that I deleted from my Photo Library a long time ago. They don't show up when I visit the photo library on www.iCloud.com. Also, they are not in the 'Recently Deleted' folder on my iDevices.
How is it possible these pictures are still on Apple's servers?
Makes me wonder if my deleted photo's really get deleted properly. And that's not a good feeling from a privacy standpoint...
It makes me wonder if they really delete anything from their servers, this is a bug, but the one that maybe just revealed that they store and keep everything when they shouldn't.
YES!! I have the same problem! To me, this is privacy violation from Apple! How is this even possible? I remember these photos I took weren't even in my iPhone (I just took them and deleted them instantly) yet somehow they uploaded to some sort of invisible cloud (because these ones are not stored on My Photo Stream nor in iCloud). I want an explanation and I don't want these photos to appear AT ALL! The problem is there's no option to delete these pictures from wherever they are stored in the cloud!