Why do I see stranger's photos?

Google Photos has options to back up photos and videos from your computer and devices. Besides digital photos taken with cameras, phones and other devices, photo files can include scans, screenshots, and files people have shared with you over the years.

If you see photos of people you don't recognize and believe it is a privacy issue, we recommend you do the following:

• 1. Go to Security Checkup and check for any unknown devices

  2. Do a Privacy Checkup

  3. Change your Google password

  4. For extra security, enable 2-step verification

  5. Review Device Activity and Notifications and look for devices that have recently accessed your Google account and any suspicious activity; remove any devices you do not recognize.

  6. Look for suspicious activity in the "Order history" at Google Play and Report Unauthorized Charges

  7. Set up a recovery phone number or email address

Some reasons for seeing photos of strangers (or unwanted photos from other family members) could be any of the following:

• • Your Google account shares storage with other products such as Blogger, Google Drive, Hangouts, and Album Archive (formerly Picasa Web Albums). This means it is possible that you once uploaded images to one of these Google products, and the photo is now being displayed at Google Photos.

  • You joined someone else's shared album

  • You uploaded someone else’s files to your Google Drive (these photos are no longer synced with Google Photos though)

  • You sold a device (or lost a device) without resetting it to factory defaults and are now seeing the new device owner's photos

  • You received the images via a messaging application such as Hangouts, WhatsApp

  • You set up a third party service (digital camera, IFTTT etc) to automatically upload photos to your account

  • You received photos then downloaded or saved them to your device; the photos could potentially get backed up into your Google Photos account

  • You are using a used computer or device that may contain photos from a previous owner; these photos may be backing up into your online account

  • In your mobile device’s SD slot is a card with photos from someone else

If all of the above does not explain why you're seeing other people's photos, please let us know so someone at Google can check into your account.

Security or privacy issues in Google products

Please report any vulnerabilities, security, or privacy issues you may have found in Google products as explained on the Google Vulnerability Reward Program website.