Apple fixes bug that caused old photos to reappear


Apple has released iOS 17.5.1, a minor software update that fixes a bug causing old pictures to reappear on some users’ phones.

The bug was spotted by several Reddit users last week. They claimed that after installing the latest iOS 17.5 update, they found old pictures that in some instances were deleted years ago.

One user said that among the resurfaced old pictures were some nude ones. The original post on Reddit has been deleted.

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The bug caused privacy concerns, as it could, for example, make private users' data pop out on other devices that have been sold to other people.

It was also a reminder that in an age of cloud computing no one can be sure that deleted files will be gone forever.

This week, Apple released an update that it says “provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare issue where photos that experienced database corruption could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted.”

However, it didn’t respond to requests about what caused the bug.

According to MacRumors, it may have been caused by an indexing problem, photo library corruption, or a syncing issue between local devices and iCloud Photos.