How to remove photos from Flickr

MarkBargain

I posted some photos on Flickr two years ago which I no longer want on there. I know the username and password so tried to log in, but it wanted to send a code to my mobile phone to access the Yahoo account. Unfortunately I no longer have that phone, but without the code I cannot log in. I contacted Yahoo support on Twitter and they just told me it is in the T&Cs that I should have updated them with my new phone number. So is that it then? Are my photos stuck on Flickr/Yahoo for the rest of eternity? Has anyone else had a similar situation and found a solution?

MarkBargain

Any ideas anyone?

agrinnall

So can you not update them with your new phone number now, or do they claim that still requires your old phone to receive a call/text? How do they think that would work if your phone had been lost or stolen? I'd talk to them again and ask for it to be escalated to someone who isn't just reading from a script.

MarkBargain

Thanks, I sent them a message on Twitter a few hours ago but no reply yet. Flickr/Yahoo have no phone number or email address, and their website is just help menus that go round in circles, so without Twitter I wouldn't have been able to contact them at all.

Chino

There's this thread on the Flickr help forum with the (largely unfulfilled, I suspect) claim that:

"If you have login issues, we'd like to help you get back into your account.
...
If nothing above works to resolve your issue, please reply below and give us at a minimum these two pieces of information":

https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157668446997150/page5/

MarkBargain

Thanks, I did try that and got as far as

"Uh-oh...Looks like we can't recover your account online. Please visit our help site to get back in."

No replies to my messages on Twitter, or to that thread.

Very poor from Yahoo.

20aday

I appreciate you haven't forgotten your password but did you attempt that option to see if it still prompted for SMS verification?

MarkBargain

Yes, it goes to Yahoo log in and wants SMS verification.

Still no reply to any of my messages to Yahoo and Flickr on Twitter.

It seems crazy that a company can refuse to let a customer close an account when they know their username and password, not even providing a phone number or email address where the customer can try to resolve it. There must be thousands of people with photos available to the world through Flickr which they no longer want people to see.

MarkBargain

I asked the ICO who wrote "There is no automatic right to deletion under the Data Protection Act 1998". They suggested I look at the Yahoo privacy policy and I did finally find a link to contact them. So, wrote an email to Yahoo using the form and got a case number...progress I thought! Yahoo promptly wrote back saying "direct email support for Yahoo Accounts isn't available" and pointed me to online help (which is no help) then closed my case. I want my old account closed, not my case! Awful service from Yahoo.

If anyone has further ideas or has been through something similar, please let me know.

poppy10_2

Try filing a DMCA notice?
You have the copyright over your own pictures. If you launch a copyright claim (against your own account) you could get the pictures deleted by saying they are being reproduced there without your permission.

https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/ip/

MarkBargain

Just to update this thread for future reference, I FINALLY managed to regain access to my account and have deleted the photos. On Yahoo's website there is a privacy policy and it is possible to click a link through there to email them. I had to write several times as many responses were a scripted answer that they do not provide email support, and it is not possible to reply to that so you have to go back to the website and submit the form all over again. Eventually someone did help me and reset by backup phone number to my current one. I was therefore able to log in using the username and password I knew, then entering the code from the verification text.

Thanks to everyone who commented.