This situation has only gotten worse during the pandemic, because most business is conducted online, and people are forced to click and share sensitive documents through their phones. Many apps have access to a device’s entire photo library, and a bug in any such app has the potential to leak personal information. It’s not only that this information can be accidentally disclosed or hacked by criminals. Surprisingly, we may not even remember taking some of these pictures in the first place. In addition to private pictures, our phones also hold images of important documents like passports, tickets, tax forms, and medical prescriptions, presenting a new set of risks like identity theft and leakage of personal information. Most of us have perhaps experienced a time when we showed our vacation pictures to our colleagues, and they scroll one more picture to the left, revealing an embarrassing or private image.

Recently, Jeff Bezos’s private pictures were leaked to a media company, allegedly by someone who had stolen them from their intended recipient, causing a major controversy. In 2014, private pictures of many Hollywood celebrities were leaked online after their iCloud accounts were hacked.

We are often unaware of what images are stored on our devices, whether they are accessible to generic apps, and if they are backed up automatically on cloud accounts with inadequate security protections. Every day, more and more sensitive and private information about us finds its way into our devices through our pictures, making us susceptible to hacking, theft, accidental disclosure, and ransom, among other risks. Unfortunately, this obsession comes at a cost. When we run out of space to store all these pictures, services like iCloud save the day by offering additional cloud storage. Consider: 3.2 billion images are uploaded every day. This obsession is reflected in the ever-increasing quality of smartphone cameras, as well as the popularity of photo-sharing and editing apps. We take pictures of our kids, our pets, our vacations, and even the food we eat, creating a new phenomenon known as “the camera eats first.” We capture moments of our lives so we can share them with others and store them for posterity.

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