If you own any Android TV device for quite some time, you've probably grown used to seeing a slideshow of your private Google Photos albums on your TV using Google Home. However, a new software bug in the Google Home app has been found exposing pictures from your Google Photos account to other Android TV users.
The bug was spotted a few days ago by one user who took to Twitter to raise awareness of the glitch involving a TV manufactured by Vu. It's worth noting that the device runs Android 7.0 Nougat with no security patch since 2017.
According to the user, private photos from linked accounts of some strangers were being displayed in the ambient mode screensaver when he used the Home app to access the Vu Android TV. The bug doesn't seem to affect Xiaomi's Mi Box 3, thankfully. As of this time, though, it's not immediately clear how many users are seeing Google Photos albums from strangers or what particular Android TV devices are affected.
As a precautionary step, Google has disabled Google Photos for Android TV and the remote casting via Google Assistant while it's currently working on a fix.
Google also confirmed to Vu that the malfunction is related to the Home app. The Mountain View-based giant has yet to provide details of the bug.
Source: XDA Developers
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