TheGoogle Photos app privacy nutrition labelin Apples App Store shows just how much of your data it collects.
The problem is, most online photo-sharing services collect more info than youd like.
Is there any safe way to sync and share your images?
Unsplash / Daniel Romero
It needs access to location data from the images to show them on a map, for example.
In the case of location, Google also uses it for analytics.
This isnt necessarily bad, and Google is not any worse than other services.
Unsplash / Tim Mossholder
They are not used to train image recognition algorithms or other machine learning products.
This isnt necessarily bad, and Google is not any worse than other services.
But the problem isnt the individual uses that online services make of your photographs.
It just takes one hidden change to terms and conditions to exploit it all.
Online Alternatives
The problem is, Google Photos is great.
It makes finding, editing, sharing, and enjoying your photos easy.
There are online alternatives, but they arent necessarily any more private, and theyre certainly not as full-featured.
Dropbox offers some curation tools, but is more about straight storage and sharing.
Photo-sharing sites likeFlickror SmugMug are more about sharing than storage.
Another option is Adobes Creative Cloud.
Unfortunately, its only available to users of Apple products.
You lose the ability to access your photos from anywhere.
Sharing photos might be more difficult.
Frankly, theyre tired of their sensitive information being collected, used, and mishandled by random unknown companies.
Popular Privacy
Users are finally waking up to the way their privacy is treated by online services.
Privacy is a growing area of concern for users worldwide, says Crane.
This is apparent when you consider all the data privacy laws that have come into play in recent years.
Consumers see headlines virtually every day screaming about new data breaches.
