Deleted photos of former owners reappearing on sold iPads (and probably iPhones)

It was reported recently that a bug in iOS 17.5 was restoring deleted photos and while that was worrying on its own, it now appears that the bug could also cause pictures to reappear on devices that were wiped clean and sold.

After iOS 17.5 was released on Monday, users started noticing that pictures they had deleted were surfacing again. The bug even impacted people who were not iCloud users, indicating that they were being restored from onboard storage. Many of the photos were years old and highly sensitive.

What makes the bug truly scary is that it can give people to whom you sold your iPhone or iPad access to your photos even if you followed Apple’s instructions for selling a device, which include signing out of iCloud and erasing your device.

This is what happened with Reddit user AnimatorAmazing190. They said they cleared their iPad before selling it and haven’t used Apple ID on that iPad since then. Luckily, their iPad was sold to a friend and not a stranger, and they informed AnimatorAmazing190 that after updating to iPad OS 17.5, they were able to view their old pictures in the Photos app. The model they were using was a 4th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

This is a nightmare that every person who sells their old device dreads and is a privacy violation of the worst sort.

It’s one thing to have your old photos resurface on your own device, but it’s an entirely different matter if a stranger gets access to your photos.

When photos and videos are deleted on an iPhone or iPad, they are moved to the Recently Deleted album for 30 days, before being permanently deleted.

Apple has not said anything about the bug so far but let’s hope it’s taken care of before anyone’s photos fall into the wrong hands