As recently reported by Gizmodo, it appears that a number of Samsung smartphone devices are sending images (including potentially private ones) to their owner’s contacts without the permission and even knowledge of the owner. And it seems that a few of these disgruntled users have already taken to Reddit to share their rather super awkward experiences -- one Galaxy S9 Plus user relates how he had texted his significant other his whole photo gallery while he was asleep. Others have claimed of similar embarrassing experiences with their Galaxy Note 8 unit.
Samsung has reportedly been already made aware of the situation, and the biggest smartphone vendor in the face of the planet is now launching its own internal investigation of the matter. It goes without saying that nobody exactly knows yet why this is all happening. Also, nobody has the faintest idea if the issue has already affected a great number of Galaxy devices, or just an isolated few.
Some users have posted on Reddit that the most of the affected Galaxy units appear to be those on T-Mobile’s network. It is interesting to note that the third biggest wireless service provider in the United States has just recently announced that it had started the roll out of its RCS (Rich Communication Services) Universal Profile 1.0 feature. RCS is a sort of advanced form of text messaging technology, one that allows for group chats, read receipt features, and quick and convenient sharing of high resolution photos.
But as suggested by T-Mobile, the issue may be a Samsung problem. It also bears mentioning that Samsung had recently posted in its official community pages that there are Samsung Messages bugs with the RCS or advanced messaging update on the Uncarrier’s network. These bugs include the premature sending of schedule messages, plus scheduled text messages that are sent to wrong chat conversations, and the incorrect labeling of scheduled messages as sent when in fact the messages were yet to be received by the intended recipients.
It is not clear yet if there is a fix, and if there is one indeed, how long affected users can expect that fix to be rolled out. In the meantime, Galaxy device owners might want to deactivate the Samsung Messages app, and perhaps take full advantage of another option like, say, Google’s Android Messages (which had recently launched for web). Samsung is also advising concerned users to reach out to the phone maker at 1-800-SAMSUNG.
