Facebook under fire for not removing photos

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 21 May 2009 at 10:07

Researchers have discovered that photographs uploaded to social-networking sites, including Facebook, are still accessible even after they've been "deleted".

A team from Cambridge University uploaded photos to 16 different social-networking sites. However, before they were deleted, the team took note of the links showing where the photos were stored on the sites' content delivery networks.

The team claims it was still able to access the photographs using the direct links on seven sites - including Facebook and MySpace - even after the photos had disappeared from the main site.

Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Bebo and blogging sites LiveJournal, Xanga and SkyRock all failed to remove photos according to the research.

"This demonstrates how social-networking sites often take a lazy approach to user privacy, doing what's simpler rather than what is correct. It's imperative to view privacy as a design constraint, not a legal add-on," says researcher Joseph Bonneau who carried out the study.

At the opposite end of the scale, the team praised Flickr and Picasa, as well as Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces which it says removed the photos instantly.

However, Facebook denied that its privacy controls had failed. "When a user deletes a photograph from Facebook it is removed from our servers immediately," the company says in a statement.

"However, URLs to photographs may continue to exist on the Content Delivery Network (CDN) after users delete them from Facebook, until they are overwritten. Overwriting usually happens after a short period of time."