TIN FOIL HAT ON! -- They want more people putting their digital photos on
the cloud so that "they" can more easily access them -- to steal identities
or do other nefarious things! -- Mike


Billions of cherished photos at risk; only a third of Americans back up their precious pics to the cloud

Date:
Sat, 08 Mar 2025 14:06:00 +0000

Americans take an astonishing 230 billion photos each year, with the vast majority captured on business smartphones ., but new research has claimed
these could all be at risk of being lost without warning.

A report from luxury cruise line company Cunard says photo books, once a
staple of family memory preservation, have become less common, as only 3% of Americans store images in printed form, with most preferring to keep them on phones or in cloud storage .

The decline raises concerns about whether digital images will remain
accessible over time, with nearly three-quarters of Americans fearing that without physical copies, future generations may lose valuable memories.

Shrinking tradition of printed photos

Many people assume their digital photos will always be available, but this is nave - as over half of Americans have had to delete images due to storage limitations, while others have lost pictures when changing or damaging their phones.

Despite these risks, only a third of Americans surveyed reported using cloud backups , leaving countless moments vulnerable to loss, while 54% believe
their digital images will still be accessible in 50 years, discouraging their use.

While Americans take an average of 17.3 photos per week, this number jumps to over 60 when on vacation. The ease of capturing images has led to an ever-expanding digital archive, albeit one with a precarious future.

Similar trends are seen in the UK and Germany; Brits capture 35 billion
images annually, while Germans take 38 billion, yet only 2% of Brits and 4%
of Germans store them in printed albums.

Concerns about long-term accessibility are slightly more pressing here, with just 51% of Brits and 58% of Germans confident that their digital photos will still be accessible in half a century.

MORE at: https://www.techradar.com/pro/billions-of-cherished-photos-at-risk-only-a-thir d-of-americans-back-up-their-precious-pics-to-the-cloud

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Mike Powell wrote to All <=-

TIN FOIL HAT ON! -- They want more people putting their digital photos
on the cloud so that "they" can more easily access them -- to steal identities or do other nefarious things! -- Mike

Billions of cherished photos at risk; only a third of Americans back up their precious pics to the cloud

How many of those billion photos are "cherished"?

Kyle Cassidy, a photographer I admire, recommended taking your top 20
photos and printing them out. If you take one you like, replace one of
the 20 with it. I used to keep a line of picture wire in my office,
mounted 4x6 photos on backing paper and hung them on the line. I could
print them and switch them out at will that way. I miss doing that, unfortunately I don't have the wall space any more.

Yeah, doing all sorts of image recognition on photos in the cloud is
nefarious -- I have photos in Google's cloud, and being able to search
photos by the names of items in the photos (not text in the photos) is
both intriguing and frightening.







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TIN FOIL HAT ON! -- They want more people putting their digital photos
on the cloud so that "they" can more easily access them -- to steal identities or do other nefarious things! -- Mike

My hat is actually aluminum, but I have much respect for the tin foil hat community ;)

I agree that big tech wants people's photos. It's not my opinion, it's a fact. At least Facebook does. And they want it to be a "selfie" too, not some old photo from back when I had more hair.

This article puts the idea in peoples' heads that they should consider backing up their photos online, and that might convince a few extra people to start doing do, but most sheeple likely don't realize that their
smartphones are already "backing up" their photos inconspicuously.

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TIN FOIL HAT ON! -- They want more people putting their digital photos on the cloud so that "they" can more easily access them -- to steal identities or do other nefarious things! -- Mike

Billions of cherished photos at risk; only a third of Americans back up their precious pics to the cloud

How many of those billion photos are "cherished"?

I had not considered that aspect but that is a good point. I have a lot of photos from my earlier years of photography (meaning not digital) that have probably been lost to time via degradation. As I have not looked at them
in years they must not be too cherished.

Kyle Cassidy, a photographer I admire, recommended taking your top 20
photos and printing them out. If you take one you like, replace one of
the 20 with it. I used to keep a line of picture wire in my office,
mounted 4x6 photos on backing paper and hung them on the line. I could
print them and switch them out at will that way. I miss doing that, unfortunately I don't have the wall space any more.

Only 20 would be rough for me. ;)

Yeah, doing all sorts of image recognition on photos in the cloud is nefarious -- I have photos in Google's cloud, and being able to search
photos by the names of items in the photos (not text in the photos) is
both intriguing and frightening.

Indeed. There are many nefarious uses for that I am sure.


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