On the Internet, some iPhone users complain that photos of strangers are suddenly appearing in their private photo galleries. Read here what Apple says about the problem and what security experts are now demanding.
The whole thing sounds very mysterious, but leaves a bad feeling in the stomach area. iPhone users are currently reporting in a forum about video problems in conjunction with the iCloud for Windows software.
This is officially from Apple and is there, among other things, to synchronize photos and videos taken with the iPhone via the Apple cloud with Windows.
Affected users have various iPhone Pro models in use and get videos via the Apple software on Windows. After the explicit download under Windows 10 or 11, however, the clips are said to break, and when they try to play them, they supposedly only show a black screen.
So far so unspectacular – a bug that can occur every day between cloud offers and users. But it goes even further: According to the users, third-party photos are sometimes displayed that are supposed to show football games or family celebrations with unknown people. There is speculation here that the images could be from other iCloud users and somehow end up in the wrong photo section.
If the speculations come true, it would not only be a disaster for users, but also a bitter pill for Apple, because who trusts cloud storage that lets photos slip into the wrong hands?
But so far there is no clarification of the facts. However, users have already reported the problem to Apple along with instructions on how to correct it:
There is at least one statement from the Apple security team about the problem described. This was received by a user who reported the problem.
The Apple experts do not classify the situation described as a security problem, but as a bug that has to be processed elsewhere.
You can see it that way, but you don’t have to. Especially when videos not only break, but random photos appear on your own system, you should also take individual user reports seriously and look at them.
We asked Apple for a statement on the subject and will provide it here if the company comments.
We were not able to reproduce the problem described here. Videos do not break when synced to Windows, nor do foreign images appear. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem at all.
Finally, an affected user even provides a video in which he downloads a short clip from the iPhone to Windows, which then shows the described black image after the download. He also provides a screenshot of a thumbnail that shouldn’t be from his photo library.
There are now a few other people who are affected who confirm the problem, but it doesn’t seem to be happening across the board yet. Nevertheless, Apple should take a close look at this, especially if any strange images suddenly appear.
The current discussion is also rekindling the call for end-to-end encryption. For example, Apple does not have this for photos and videos, but for passwords or payment data in the iCloud.
The original of this post “iPhone users can see photos of other users” comes from chip.de.
