Researchers find that a number of popular websites keep users' photos - even after they have been deleted.
Deleting a photo on social networking sites like Facebook may not mean that other people stop being able to see it, a new study has claimed.
Researchers from Cambridge University uploaded photos to 16 popular websites and made a note of the address where the photos were stored. They then deleted them, but on seven of the sites - including Facebook - were able to return to the photos using the direct address.
"This demonstrates how social networking sites often take a lazy approach to user privacy, doing what's simpler rather than what is correct," said Joseph Bonneau, one of the team involved with the study. "It's imperative to view privacy as a design constraint, not a legal add-on."
However, a Facebook spokesman responded: "When a user deletes a photograph from Facebook it is removed from our servers immediately. However, URLs to photographs may continue to exist on the Content Delivery Network after users delete them from Facebook, until they are overwritten."
The problem lies with the fact that files are rarely destroyed when they are deleted by a user, even on a standard PC. Instead, they are 'flagged' as deleted, but in many cases remain on the system until they are overwritten by something else.
