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After I updated to 17.5, I received a push notification that "A device has been added to your account. An iPad now has access to FaceTime."

Sure enough a 2016 iPad Pro was added into my Devices in iCloud. An iPad that I handed over to Apple a year ago for recycling.

It creeped me out and I called Apple support. They are looking into it but assume it is a bug.
 
Interesting. Does anyone else have this issue with deleted messages? I use Messages in iCloud. I have Advanced Data Protection enabled (all my iCloud data is end to end encrypted). Sometimes I delete messages. Then I delete them from "Deleted Messages", thereby permanently deleting them. 6 months later, they still come up in my deleted messages, fully capable of being restored.

Probably kept in the "just in case Law enforcement asks" bin

But, of course, Apple is on "our side"

Yeah - right
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the state of Apple Software QC (or complete lack thereof) in 2024. So much for that "security" paying the premium price and living in a walled garden gets you.
Without that crap quality we'd never know that Apple was secretly still keeping files.
 
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I would agree!
But I also would not be surprised if law enforcement is getting lots of access to things, and using methods, that are "illegal" also
Possibly in the USA, however in the UK (where I live) and EU the relevant agencies have nowhere near the power and influence of what the NSA, CIA etc. does in the US, and have more democratic civilian oversight. It wouldn't be allowed.
 
So that’s how you’ll explain those NSFW pictures to your wife :oops:
You're being facetious I assume, but there is a legit potential issue that can come from this.

What if pics of an ex from years ago do show in recent photos? It can lead to big issues.

Sure anyone checking the phone of a partner likely already has trust issues with them, but the point remains.
 
So this is why I had a random screenshot reappear in my photos library yesterday!
Second that. I take a screenshot, send it and then delete it. Now I've got a couple back thinking, "hmmm, did I miss deleting them?". Not too old though so they were probably in the "Recently Deleted" album (which is protected by FaceID, but clearly that isn't enough).
 
This tells me that your deleted photos are never really deleted.
Are there ANY reports of this happening if someone has icloud backup turned off?

If so, I agree this is a major issue and can’t be explained away by a sync bug. If not, the explanation given is plausible but still bad.

If this is the case Macrumors and other media outlets should make this a front page story, with precisely this information. The subtle distinction here is extremely important because in one case they have a bad bug, in another case they aren’t doing what they say they are with our data.

A merge conflict is explainable only if there is data there to be merged back, e.g. from an old backup. This is vital to understand and should be a priority for anyone reporting on this further. And it’s only justifiably explainable (but again, still bad) if the data being merged back into the library is from an icloud backup.

This should have nothing to do with icloud photo library, give how the software works. I hope we get more information about this specific detail.
 
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No-one is worried about the bug, iOS is a little buggy these days, we all understand that. Its the fact that the bug shows Apple are not deleting user photos after the user has requested deletion. That is illegal in most parts of the western world, morally wrong from a personal privacy point of view, and hypocrisy from a brand that prides itself on being a bastion of personal privacy
And if you read my post instead of just quoting it, you would see I’m agreeing with you. However, the article calls it a bug in 17.5 and comments call it a recent failure of QA.

I am uninterested in spinning this, only in honesty in how the presence of supposedly deleted photo data is handled.

This is not a 17.5 bug. The article needs updating so the focus is where it should be.
 
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This is extremely worrying if this is an iCloud bug; it’s one thing for on-device photos to be accidentally retained somehow, but if Apple are keeping copies of everyone’s deleted images for years on their servers, that’s a big problem.
This needs a major investigation. It’s really making me think Apple is no better than Google.
 
And if you read my post instead of just quoting it, you would see I’m agreeing with you. However, the article calls it a bug in 17.5 and comments call it a recent failure of QA.

I am uninterested in spinning this, only in honesty in how the presence of supposedly deleted photo data is handled.

This is not a 17.5 bug.
You're continuing to focus on the wrong thing.

What matters is deleted photos resurfaced meaning they weren't deleted.

Nothing Else Matters.
 
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