Google Photos: a concern

[jerrod6]

When I received my N5 I checked out the pre installed apps and saw that Google photos if activated would back up every photo you take to Google servers. I don't want every picture of my life on anyone's server so I closed the app without signing up.

Today I took a picture and checked it out. I am taken to a place that says most recent and this page contains the photos I have taken with the phone since I've had it.

Then I notice the menu icon on the left corner,I slide right and discover I am in my google+ page.

I am upset. I might want one or two photos on Google+ but I prefer to select them myself.

So how does this work and how can I stop having every photo of my life on Goggle servers?

Posted via Android Central App

 

[TechTinker]

When I received my N5 I checked out the pre installed apps and saw that Google photos if activated would back up every photo you take to Google servers. I don't want every picture of my life on anyone's server so I closed the app without signing up.

Today I took a picture and checked it out. I am taken to a place that says most recent and this page contains the photos I have taken with the phone since I've had it.

Then I notice the menu icon on the left corner,I slide right and discover I am in my google+ page.

I am upset. I might want one or two photos on Google+ but I prefer to select them myself.

So how does this work and how can I stop having every photo of my life on Goggle servers?

Posted via Android Central App

Has far as I know, it does them automatically (I think theres a choice to turn it off, not sure where.) But their all private like iCloud, and if its too personal just delete it from there.

 

[gone down south]

The day you lose or break your phone and all your pictures have been automatically backed up to a private, secure space on Google's servers you'll feel differently.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[jerrod6]

No I won't feel differently. I already back up the photos I want to using my PC and then to offline storage. I also have uploaded some to Google drive, but that is different because drive is not exposed to social networking.


And finally....we all know about the news reports detailing the fact that the government requests data from many companies, and even when Google did not give them everything it was uncovered and the government got the data from the servers itself. I an Not anti gov, I just want control over my pictures so when I do not continue the process to back my data from the photo app I certainly don't expect to find it on Google+ anyway.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[TechTinker]

No I won't feel differently. I already back up the photos I want to using my PC and then to offline storage. I also have uploaded some to Google drive, but that is different because drive is not exposed to social networking.

Ok Sour.. Turn Off/On G+ Auto Backup.

What if you take something special and your phone gets ruined before you can hook up to PC? I know someone who does what you do, we were on vacation and something happened and some pics/videos were lost.
Oh no the gov has a picture you took of your dog, woops. And G+ backup is like drive, its private and secure, its not shared with your cirlces or anything. Besides they can hack drive too, and your PC, nothings secure.

 

[jerrod6]

I found a solution and have more info will post more after I eat dinner

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jerrod6]

I've looked into this more and am not as concerned as I was. My photos are found in Google+ because sync was turned on by default when the phone was delivered, in fact the phone was synced to every service Google has.

I found sync under the account options and turned sync off for those services I do no use.

I checked the Google photos app in the app drawer and the backup set up screen is still displayed.

There is another app that is displayed when you pick a wall paper. This is the one that shows photos on a grid and has a menu that shows other sources of images such as drive and other photo apps. This could be very useful. There is nothing to identify what this app is. This might be Google photos but you would never know it by looking at any of the screens.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[patruns]

This is actually not totally new. My Galaxy Nexus did this initially using Picassa by default. I had to turn off the syncing so I was aware of it this time. I don't really care if the government sees my bloated beach vacation photos, I have almost all of my stuff on Flickr anyway. I just don't want to waste the battery and have no need for other backup. I have redundant backups at home and Flickr and most of my important pics are taken with a real camera.

 

[Paisley]

Get rid of Google+ if you have concerns about your stuff showing up everywhere. It astounds me how quick they are to publish everything under your Google profile. Because they're going from services to social media it's hard to keep those things separate and they clearly have no intention of being conservative about how your stuff is linked and shared. De-link if it bothers you and keep your services (email, YouTube, Picasa, etc) separate.

 

[CooCooCaChoo]

I had the brilliant idea of taking photos of my drivers license and social security card so that if I ever lost them I would have digital copies of them. I nearly **** myself when I saw the pictures backed up online.

Needless to say I quickly sought out a way to delete the pictures permanently.

 

[newbroot83]

Theres also a setting in google plus under settings where you can turn off the auto upload. I turned mine off as soon as I noticed that everything was trying to back up there. Once I turned it off I disabled the app. Google+ just seemed more of a battery eater than any perk I found from it

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