14 DAY TRIAL // Flickr has updated some of its policies regarding the photos stored on the site and provided some details on existing policies. The big change is that Flickr will now keep all photos from a deleted account for 90 days, to make sure that they're still recoverable if you change of mind.
The change comes after plenty of requests from the users and after a particularly publicized account when Flickr mistakenly deleted the account of a user and had to manually recover 4,000 or so photos.
"We’ve now instituted a 90 day delay in deleting the content, including the photos, metadata, comments, and all the bits of an account, after it’s deleted," Flickr explained.
"The data is no longer available publicly but it is kept on our servers, just in case you want to restore it. After that ‘buffer’ period, we erase it from our servers, ensuring your privacy," it added.
A few months ago, Flickr managed to delete an account by mistake, leaving its owner with 4,000 photos and, more importantly, all of the comments, stats and other info gone.
At the time, Flickr removed images and everything linked to an account as soon as that account was deleted. This makes sense from a privacy point of view, but it left Flickr in a bad position when mistakes happen.
Flickr was able to retrieve the data for that account, it didn't say how, but it took a couple of days and probably a lot of work from some Flickr employees, to get it all back.
So the new retention policy should come in rather handy in situations like this or in more common ones like users changing their minds about deleting their accounts.
Flickr also reminded users that their photos are otherwise safe, it makes multiple copies of them to ensure that they're still there no matter what happens. It also keeps all photos and data if a pro account expires and restores it as the subscription is renewed.