iPhones are supposed to be more secure than Android, right? Turns out the latest iOS 17.5 might have the potential to change your mind. The update has broken ‘Photos’ on Apple devices bringing ‘deleted photos’ back to life.
Yep, that’s what the problem is with iOS 17.5. Users are finding old and deleted photos back on their iPhones/iPads. Some users on Reddit referenced photos deleted in 2016 and back that surprisingly made their appearance on their devices as ‘Recently Uploaded’.
The issue appears to be independent of iCloud where iPhone users are backed up to the cloud. A user reportedly spotted 300 old and deleted photos while another was able to see four specific photos irrespective of how many times he deletes those photos, they are back.
Apple does have a feature to restore deleted photos within 30 days. If the user doesn’t restore a deleted photo(s), it is gone completely. However, the latest issue with iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 has raised concerns as Apple may have been holding all their photos while pretending to be one of the most secure phones available today.
Some users blame Apple as it was unable to get rid of deleted photos. Ideally, your phone (or any other storage device) removes references to photos or data once deleted. It doesn’t completely remove the photos but allows overwriting eventually leading to no 1s and 0s regarding that particular photo or video. This is what makes retrieving deleted data difficult after a certain period.
However, the photos that resurfaced on most devices were years old meaning somehow, Apple was able to keep these photos intact all this time. It raises privacy concerns as there’s a possibility that you had wiped your iPhone or iPad and sold it only to find ‘sensitive’ or ‘revealing’ photos resurfacing on that sold iPhone.
Apple hasn’t acknowledged the issue yet although it appears to be a patch-up over iOS 17.3 photo syncing bug. Additionally, it might not be limited to photos since a user reported reading or deleted voice notes resurfaced too leaving notifications on the WhatsApp icon for a particular user.
It remains to be seen what exactly went wrong and how Apple will fix this new photogate issue. For now, you can get your hands on iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 via Settings on their devices.
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