Are your family photos really safe online? Ask expert your questions

[EllieSmumsnet]

From first steps, to birthday parties, school plays and everyday moments, your family photos capture it all. But in today’s digital world, keeping those memories safe isn’t always as simple as it should be.

Whether you're trying to figure out how to safely share albums with family and friends, the easiest way to back up photos from your phone, thinking about the risk of platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox, or you're worried about your photos being used to train AI or fuel targeted ads, expert Nouha from Proton Drive is here to help.

You don’t need to be tech-savvy to join the conversation. Proton Drive is here to offer simple, trustworthy advice so you can feel confident your family’s most precious moments stay private and protected.

• Everyone who shares a questions on the thread below by 05/06/2025 will be entered into a prize draw
• One lucky Mumsnet user will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice
• Our expert Nouha from Proton Drive will be back soon to answer some of your questions

About the expert
“Hi everyone, I’m Nouha — I lead Growth at Proton Drive, where we build privacy-first alternatives to Big Tech services like Google and Microsoft. Unlike those, we don’t track your family's emails, photos, or browsing habits and definitely don’t collect data on your kids as they grow up. Our mission is simple: to help people take back control of their digital lives, and over 100 million people trust us to do just that.

Technology moves fast, and it can feel like a lot to keep up with. That’s why I’m here: to help make it a little easier to understand and navigate.”

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ
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Hello - I have 1000's of photos on my Iphone, but they are only in data order, and not in albums - is there any easy way of saving my photos in a more organised fashion - other than doing this manually ?

Are photos and videos shared over WhatsApp which stay on my phone, and go to the camera roll safe from being stolen, what would you recommend to secure them.

How do you protect your kids photos from being used by AI?

Cloud based storage worries me - I'd hate to loose or have photo's stolen, with cybertheft and hacking becoming more sophisticated, can I file and store photos in month and year order, and can they be saved for children and grandchildren to view - and once in the cloud - can I download to another device or cloud storage service or would this be difficult ?

Is there a maximum or minimum number of account I could have to store photos with family, and would you offer something like this for schools - so parents can see school photo's with secure access for parents/guardians only.

I’ve had an iPhone since the start but really fed up of paying for storage. If I move to Android, what’s the easiest way to migrate my storage?

What are your rights to prosecute if you see your photo being used by another person (this happened to me when someone copied a holiday photo for a holiday competition on facebook) - they did not win - but used a photo I had posted to facebook where I limit just family and friends to see my wall.

I need control over my photos - I have 1000's and don't want to delete any.
Is there any way of sorting photos by face recognition to store them in children folders - and if both children are in photos - it will recognise this and save to the appropriate folders virtually ?

We have a lot of photos of my mum who passed away last year. We want to create an online album for us and other family members that is safe and secure. One of the problems we are finding with current options is that while a number of people can view the photos only one person can add them to the album. Do you have a way of allowing several people to have adding/editing rights?

It’s always so stressful when changing phones as I never know what to do with my photos and I don’t want to lose them.
What is your advice for this? I worry about them being ‘in the cloud’. I just want somewhere I know they will stay safe - like a virtual photo album!

Are you actively saving the WhatsApp photos to your phone? If you don’t they’ll disappear!

We know photos on the internet are there 'forever' once posted - would there be an ability to know who copied or saved them once posted ? I have a lot of my children on instagram - but have secure settings with only close family and trusted friends being able to see them - can I set up anything like this ?

May be the way I have set up my whatsapp - but they stay on my whatsapp chat and to my camera roll - I delete the ones on my camera roll which I don't want to keep - but just need some clarification

Does Proton Drive have 2 factor authentication, and if you change your phone number - is this possible to change your log-in for the 2 factor ??

Are your facebook photos really safe if your account is private? Thank you

How much storage would you be able to use if you wanted to save family holiday videos ? And you you have any option for your account to be handed down to family should you die ?

How safe is Google Photos?

If I accidentally delete from the 'cloud' is it definitely gone forever - or will a server have it somewhere for a retention period ?

This sounds like a good alternative from the apple cloud storage - but would current providers make it easy to upload from your current drive - have you come across any resistance with this ? If so how have you smoothed the process.

Is £4.09 a month an introductory offer- will you be keeping the cost at this for the foreseeable ?

What are the risks of using google photos?

I use dropbox - and send to family when I have had a holiday or birthday, how easy is it to convert photos and videos to your platform ? Have you found that providers make it difficult to do this or have made transfers of data harder.

How easy is to to change between plans - could more than one person in your household have a plan ?

I was on a jury recently where we had to read hundreds of WhatsApp messages.
Not as safe as you might think.