Samsung phones are reportedly sending photos to random contacts without the owner's knowledge or permission, and no notification as well. Responding to the complaints, Samsung relayed that it already launched an investigation to look into the matter.
Observers are suggesting that perhaps, the disturbing issue resulted from a new update to Samsung's texting app. They said that a glitch may have come about during the update, and unfortunately, it is the type that leaks stored photos in the phone.
Apparently, the owners of the Samsung phones that send random photos to random people in the contact list only discovered the unusual activity when they get a message or response from the recipient. This is rather frightening because personal stuff is being sent out without any notification.
The public was made aware of the glitch when a Samsung Galaxy S9+ owner posted his experience on a forum. Based on his post, his smartphone sent his entire photo gallery to his girlfriend.
"Last night around 2:30 am, my phone sent her my entire photo gallery over text but there was no record of it on my messages app," the user called Rubsumlotion wrote on Reddit.
Many Redditors left comments on the post and most of them expressed shock and deep concern. This is quite understandable since this is an issue of privacy.
They said that this glitch is distressing while others added that this is a nightmare for Samsung phone users, especially those who own the latest Galaxy S9+. Moreover, many of the phone users suspected that perhaps enabling photos to be automatically backed-up to Google has something to do with the glitch. They explained that when the Samsung message app update, the permission on Google's photo back-up may have been triggered and caused the leak.
As per the comments on the thread created by Rubsumlotion, there are at least two Samsung phone models that were affected by the bug and these are the Galaxy S9 and S9+. It is possible that other unit models were also affected as there was also someone who mentioned the Note 8.
It is not clear whether the issue has already been resolved but Samsung is trying to figure out the cause of the leaked photos. In a statement sent to Gizmodo, Samsung stated, "Samsung has reviewed this matter thoroughly these past few days; however, there were no hardware or software issues found to be relevant to this particular case.
Lastly, the company also encouraged users to report all similar incidents and to contact their customer care centers so they can address the matter.
