Your 'deleted' Facebook photos may still be online

If you think your Facebook photo is safely gone once you deleted it from your account, think again.

 

Facebook has admitted that its older systems for storing uploaded content don't always delete images from its content delivery networks, tech site Ars Technica reported.

 

“The systems we used for photo storage a few years ago did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site,” it quoted Facebook spokesperson Frederic Wolens as saying in an e-mail to it.

 

Ars Technica said the social networking giant added it is working on a newer system that speeds up the process, but “deleted” photos may remain online until then.

 

“In the meantime, photos that users thought they ‘deleted’ from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link,” it said.

 

Ars Technica said it discovered the phenomenon in 2009, where “deleted” Facebook photos can still be accessed via a direct link to the image file on Facebook’s servers.

 

Under such a situation, users can remove the image from Facebook’s main user interface, but someone who has a direct link to the .jpg file can still access it.

 

“When we asked Facebook about it, we were told that the company was ‘working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist,’” it said.

 

It said that when it followed up on the matter more than a year later, its “deleted” photos were still accessible via direct link.

 

“That’s when the reader stories started pouring in: we were told horror stories about online harassment using photos that were allegedly deleted years ago, and users who were asked to take down photos of friends that they had put online,” it said.

 

It cited one case where a reader asked a friend to take down a photo of his child crawling naked on the lawn. While the friend did so in May 2008, the photo is still online, it said.

 

Facebook's 'legacy system'

 

Ars Technica quoted Wolens as saying photos remaining online are stuck in a legacy system that was apparently never operating properly.

 

But he said Facebook is working on a new system that will delete the photos in a mere month and a half, “for really real this time.”

 

“We have been working hard to move our photo storage to newer systems which do ensure photos are fully deleted within 45 days of the removal request being received. This process is nearly complete and there is only a very small percentage of user photos still on the old system awaiting migration, the URL you provided was stored on this legacy system. We expect this process to be completed within the next month or two, at which point we will verify the migration is complete and we will disable all the old content,” Wolens said.

 

Wolens said Facebook is on the verge of fixing up its content systems so that “deleted” photos are really, truly deleted from the CDN within 45 days.

 

“But with the process not expected to be finished until a couple months from now—and unfortunately, with a company history of stretching the truth when asked about this topic—we’ll have to see it before we believe it,” Ars Technica said. — TJD, GMA News