Google temporarily makes sharing photos via Android TV impossible after privacy leak

Google has temporarily disabled the sharing of photos via Android TV devices. In recent days, due to a bug, some owners of TVs with the OS inadvertently saw names and profile pictures of other Google Photo users.

The leak was discovered by Twitter user prashanth. On March 3, he was surprised to notice that usernames and profile pictures of total stranger Google Photo users suddenly appeared when setting his Android TV’s Ambient Mode ‘screensaver’.

Initially, it appeared that the leak was limited to Vu-branded televisions, but a second Twitter user claims to experience the same problem with an Android TV from the iFFalcon brand. It is striking that both reports of the bug come from India.

Although the problem does not manifest itself on every Android TV device, Google is erring on the safe side. The company tells Android Police that sharing photos via Android TV has been disabled worldwide for the time being, pending a final fix for the bug.

Update 14:09: Contrary to what the article previously stated and what Techradar writes, users could not see photos of other users except for the profile photos. They saw a list of the names of other Google Photo users who have the same TV. The article has been edited.