You Really Don’t Control or Own Your Data in the Cloud

iPhone Thefts and Google Lockouts Raise Questions

Imagine you are running out of space in your house and Sharon, a trusted neighbor, suggests that you store some of your property such as boxes of old family photo albums, address books, and letters at John’s house. John has an enormous house with plenty of room in the basement. Sharon has been storing her property at John’s house for years. John sent her a key and she has been able to enter the house day or night to get items or drop off items or just look at items. Sharon is not sure why, but John does not charge anything. Sharon has never meet John, but other neighbors have the same storage arrangement and speak very highly of the service John provides to the neighborhood.

Would you trust John with the big house on the block to store your precious keepsake items? You would probably pass on this arrangement for obvious reasons. You would not want to depend on someone you never meet to safeguard your property. You might be concerned about misuse of your precious property or a theft since there are so many neighbors coming and going. Depending upon where you live, you might be worried about a fire or flood. You might even be worried John may just change the locks one day. You would probably prefer to keep your property in your home where you can keep an eye on it. A silly example, but that may be what we are doing when we rely exclusively on Apple Photos and Google Photos to store our precious photos and do not have a copy we fully control.

It is easy to get complacent about the information we store in the Cloud. We can retrieve photos instantly from all our devises from anywhere in the world provided we have an Internet connection. We feel that the data is safe and ours to retrieve forever with our username and password. But we are wrong, very wrong. Access to our precious memories can be gone in an instant.

Two recent news stories about online account owners abruptly losing access to their Cloud data highlights the importance of not relying solely on a Cloud service to store critical data. Given my interest in preservation of family photos, photo archiving will be my focus.

iPhone Thefts

The first and most disturbing news article was about the small but growing number of thefts and quick hacks into iPhones. The thieves will observe an iPhone user entering their passcode in a public location, often bars. The thieves will then snatch the iPhone and very quickly reset the passcode, shut down the “find my phone” feature, deactivate other trusted Apple devices, and try to enter a recovery key. The result is that the owner is prevented from accessing the iPhone and their Apple account from their iPad or laptop. This can all be done if the thief has the passcode and the user is not using other security options. The iPhone owner loses access to everything: their messages, contacts, passwords, and photos. In some security configurations, the passcode grants the thieves access to financial accounts plus accounts in the password vault. The thieves can transfer large sums from bank accounts and set up credit cards. If the owner has not already established a recovery key and the thief sets up a first-time recovery key, Apple will not restore access via any of the owner’s Apple devices. See this Apple Insider article for more details and how to reduce your risk by using face id and other security settings.

Google Locks Out Account Owner

The second story is about parents with Google Photo accounts who sent cellphone photos, at the request of their pediatricians, of skin rashes in their child’s groin area. The photos were automatically backed up to Google Photos where a photo scanning algorithm tagged the photos as child pornography. Google closed the account and referred the matter to the police. The subject of the investigation subsequently provided Google with documentation of the photo request from the pediatrician and that the police had investigated the matter, found no crime, and closed the case. Google said the account would remain closed. No appeal. The individual lost access to a lifetime of data including photos. What is most amazing is that Google was not returning the owner’s other photos as well as his contact information, messages, and other data. Case closed.

The New York Times article describes the impact on one of the individuals.

He filled out a form requesting a review of Google’s decision, explaining his son’s infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google’s rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son’s first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn’t get the security codes he needed to sign into other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life.

After multiple stories in the New York Times, Google subsequently modified its appeals process and in one case has restored the owner’s access to their account and the data. No such luck with the owners of the stolen iPhones. One victim lost 15 years of memories stored in their iCloud account.

Hopefully none of us have an iPhone and passcode stolen or have content tagged by Google as violating any of its policies. These cases should remind us that we do not truly control the key to our data stored by Apple or Goggle. The lock can be changed at any time. Most alarming is the fact that Apple or Google do not think users have a right to their data including their photos. How hard could it be for Apple or Google to verify the true owner of an account by examining its contents? Does the owner’s face id match the pictures in many of the photos? Is their name at the bottom of years of emails? Does the geotagging location information match where they live and work? Apple and Google know a lot about us. More than enough to verify our identity. I think users locked out would be willing to pay a fee for such a verification and restoration service if the time and effort is the issue.

Storing photos solely on iCloud or Google photos is just too risky. It is like storing your precious property in John’s house.

What To Do?

I recommend implementing a 3-2-1 backup strategy for important family photo archives whereby we have greater control of our photos.

The 3-2-1 backup strategy is made up of three rules:

·Three data copies. Three copies of all critical data should be made on a regular basis -- daily or more frequently -- including the original data and at least two backups.

·Two types of storage. Two different storage types should be used to store the data. Both copies of the backed-up data should be kept on two separate storage types to minimize the chance of failure. Storage device types could include an internal hard drive, external hard drive, removable storage drive, a tape library, a secondary storage array or a cloud backup environment.

·One off-site location. One copy of the data should be shipped to an off-site storage facility. At least one data copy should be stored in an off-site or remote location to ensure that natural or geographical disasters cannot affect all data copies. This copy can be physically delivered to the off-site location, as with tape-based backups, or it can be replicated to the secondary site via telecommunications facilities.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatabackup/definition/3-2-1-Backup-Strategy

The key to implementing this strategy is to have one photo storage hub where you have the original, highest quality copies of your photos. You will need a desktop or laptop. The basic configuration is to have the originals on your laptop or desktop’s hard drive. That’s copy 1. Then backup the files to an external hard drive. That’s copy 2 on a separate storage device. You then backup the copy 1 or copy 2 files to a cloud service that you control. The cloud is copy 3. If the hard drive fails, you have the external hard drive. The cloud copy protects you in the event of the loss off copies 1 and 2 from the theft, fire, or flood.

There are plenty of online references on implementing a 3-2-1-Backup-Strategy. Apple users will need to locate their system photo library that has all the original, highest quality copies of the photos from various Apple devices. Google Photos is the location of your best quality photos if you have the original quality option selected. Also, with more computers using relatively small solid state hard drives (SSD), you may have to invest in two external hard drives since there may not be enough room on your laptop or desktop hard drive for all your photos and videos. Your primary external drive should be a faster SSD drive. Fortunately, storage has gotten less expensive and the second drive can be a less expensive and slower spinning disk hard drive. For more information on photo archiving and backups, see my the DIY page on my website and Cathi Nelson’s excellent book, Photo Organizing Made Easy.

Take Control Of Your Memories

The key to this strategy is that you have control over your data. It is a more effort than just counting on the Cloud. However, the new stories referenced above highlight the risks of the Cloud. You will not be vulnerable to a theft of a device or a decision by Apple or Google that prevents you from accessing your photos and more. You are taking on more responsibility, but a 3-2-1 Backup is considered a best practice data backup strategy. Also, you may want to consider distributing the most important family photo files to other relatives so that there are multiple archives of important photos.

If you embark on implementing a 3-2-1 backup, your timing is good since March 31 is World Backup Day. Yes, there is a designated recognition day for everything, even data backup.

Consider a Life Story Legacy Video

You may want to consider a life story legacy video to identify and preserve your most important family photos and family stories. One of the first steps for creating a video is to select family photos for use in the video. Feel free to contact me via the contact form on my website. I would be happy to schedule a time to talk with you.

Bryon