Think your Facebook photos really go away when you hit delete? They didn’t until now. Here’s what used to happen to many photos: when a photo was deleted it disappeared from all profiles and albums, making it seem like it was really gone. But if a direct link to the photo was saved, by copying its URL, the photo was still easily accessible, in some cases up to three years after it was deleted. Facebook has now promised to delete photos from its servers no more than 30 days after a user deletes the photo from their profile. In other Facebook news, officials in Germany are investigating the company’s facial recognition technology for a second time. The data protection commissioner there is accusing Facebook of compiling huge databases of users’ photos without their consent, which he says goes against European law. Facebook disagrees, saying that their opt-out system is perfectly legal. Just another day in the slippery slope of online privacy.
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