Facebook keeps your deleted photos for years
October 16, 2010 | Views
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SYDENY: Social networkinggiant Facebook has been slammed for keeping deleted pictures of aprofile up to 30 months after removing them.
It hasadmitted it had been keeping deleted photos for a 'limited' amount oftime. However, users who have kept the direct link to photos that wereoriginally uploaded to the social networking site have been able tostill gain access to them months, even years after deletion, reportsthe Sydney Morning Herald.
In one report, aFacebook user said they had deleted an image from the site 2.5 yearsago (30 months), and that it was still available to see on the site.Another said a photo from April 2009 was still accessible after it wasdeleted.
The Facebook photomatter centres on what is known as a content delivery network, orcontent distribution network (CDN), which stores multiple copies ofcontent on servers around the globe.
Facebook usessuch a delivery method when you upload a photo to the site. However,when you delete your photos from the site, despite them being removedfrom view, if you still have the image's direct URL it may still beaccessible for a period of time after its removal.
"It's possible that someone who previously had access to a photo andsaved the direct URL from our content delivery network partner couldstill access the photo," said Axten.
"However,again, the person would have to know the URL, and the photo only existsin the CDN's cache for a limited amount of time.
We're working with the CDN to reduce the amount of time that the photo remains in its cache."