Photo contribution bug?

[JPF1]

Last night I discovered personal photos showing up on Google Maps contributions with public views when there is not a review or photo submitted by myself. The photos appear to be random, posting only a few at restaurants or parks visited as an example.

This is quite alarming (!). How do I get in contact with someone in support to investigate this potential bug? I submitted feedback via Google Maps app as well as called support. No one at support was able to help as they could not find a department contact for Google Maps.

I really enjoy being part of and contributing to the community... but value my privacy above all else and will exit the program and delete my profile, if necessary.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[StephenAbraham]

@JPF1 as far as I know and read, and I looked through previous posts, there isn't a auto photo upload feature. However, there is a feature that Maps will automatically suggest uploads of related photos through notifications, and sometimes, previous users have accidentally triggered the upload without noticing. Are you on Android or iOS? The suggestions below are based on Android, but should be similar of iOS although I can't be sure.

1. Update your Maps to the latest official version.

2. Go to Maps > Menu > Settings > Notifications > Your contributions

> Turn off "Adding your photos"

> Turn off "Show photos publishing notifications"

The above should prevent accidental trigger of photo uploads in notifications

In the mean time, the personal photos that were uploaded, do check if they are publicly accessible through an incognito browser. I note that you stated there are views of the photos, but sometimes that could be personal views as well.

1. Go to Maps app, you contributions, share your profile, copy to clipboard (the link to your profile)

2. Open a web browser incognito window, and paste your profile link

3. See if you can find/see the photos

4. If you can see those photos and if those photos are personal photos, then go back to Maps app and delete them under "Your contributions"

That's all I can think of the moment to help. If you find the above didn't resolve your problem, please report back here with your phone model, android/iOS version, maps version and we can tag a Google Moderator to help.

[JPF1]

@StephenAbraham thank you for the tips. I have made the recommended updates in settings and will keep an eye out while traveling through Europe this week.

Also, the photos are visible in incognito mode. I started removing the personal ones and it seems it takes 12 to 24 hours to become effective.

Appreciate the help and will report back if it keeps happening. 

Have a good weekend! 

Cheers, 

JP

[SuzanneBozz]

@StephenAbraham

Sorry, I did not want to open up a new thread for this, but I also experience some issue since the update with my contributions. As per yesterday all my contributions like editing or adding places go to another account. I have worked on a PC where other family members sometimes work as well. To avoid problems I logged out then only logged in myself with my Google account. So there is no other account active. I cleared the history of the browser in my Chrome and also the cache files (using the Chrome tool). I then added a place and it was not visible in my contribution but in the Google maps account of my husband. Could you please look into that problem? I have seen that users have an ID in maps if they use one device with different accounts. I know my ID is 01 whereas the ID of my husband is 00. So maybe something there is buggy.

Also the buildup of the (3D) satellite images have become very, very slow compared to a week or so before.

I think we should also have a place in this forum to report bugs, issue etc.. Or where is the right place to do that?

[StephenAbraham]

@SuzanneBozz I suggest if you are working on a shared PC, to avoid any possibility of mixed logins, use an new incognito browser session for your work, and log in there again. Ie first close all sessions of the browser, then only open an incognito browser window, and log in there. That would probably be the best way of ensuring your account is the one logging in.

[SuzanneBozz]

@StephenAbraham

Using the Incognito mode works without problems. Contributions are now attributed to the respective account.