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Forum Discussion
Dropbox silently altering autoplay to upload photos is unacceptable
I've had the occasion to do a fresh install of dropbox on a couple of windows PCs recently, and both times I've discovered after the fact that the default windows autoplay setting was changed to enable silent uploading of files to Dropbox's photos folder. This setting had previously been set to simply open the volume in file explorer.
This is appalling from a privacy standpoint. No, no pictures of my kids, or (to avert sniggers) compromising pictures of me, or my partner, or any other images I absolutely don't want online were uploaded. They certainly could have been though, if I didn't just happen to realise the setting was changed when I used a usb stick after installing dropbox.
Whoever thought this default was a good idea needs to consider whether it really was worth the risk of compromising users' privacy. It should not be a default setting. It's outrageous it's a silent default setting. If it was an option stated in the dropbox install that I missed, it was nowhere near obvious enough - and still shouldn't be a default.
Rant over.
2 Replies
Ok, well that's significantly better. Still rather annoying to have to go back and change this setting to what it was previously manually set to though - would be preferable to be asked about any autoplay change at all.
- Rich
Super User II
Dropbox silently altering autoplay to upload photos is unacceptable
Dropbox doesn't upload photos without first asking if you want to enable the feature. The only way for Camera Uploads to actually upload photos or videos if is you allow it to. The change to autoplay is simply to be able to display the prompt so you can, if you wish to, enable the automatic upload using Camera Uploads. Nothing is uploaded without you opting in.
