Can an iOS app that has access to Photos get all my photos?

Can a developer collect my photos that I edited and saved in my iPhone album?

One of the function of the an app I am using is to edit photos and save them to my iPhone's album. In this case, can the developer collect my edited photos?

I did not upload any photos, nor did I share them with anybody.

Also, there is no mention of collecting user's content in the privacy policy of the said app.

Can anyone help me with this?

Yes, if you give the application access to your photos and the application has network access, the photos can be taken from your iPhone.

Only use apps you trust

• If you do not trust the developer, do not install or use their applications.

• If the developer is not clear and explicit about how they handle your photos, do not install or use their applications.

• If the developer is not contactable or does not answer your questions, do not install or use their applications.

Yes, the developer could theoretically collect photos that you edit within the app.

If you have granted the app access to your Photos library explicitly, then the app could potentially also collect those photos. If the app uses the Apple supplied image picker control, it can get a copy of a single photo that you select without you giving explicit access to the whole of the Photos library. This way the app can only access that single photo.

If the app does not explicitly state about such a collection clearly to the users, and it is not written in the app's privacy policy, such a collection would be a violation of their agreement with Apple - and depending on your jurisdiction - most likely also a violation of the law.

I don't think there's necessarily any greater chance of a single person business violating rules and regulations than a company doing so. In some way, you could argue that it would be the other way around, as a named person could be less inclined to do shady stuff compared to an "anonymous" company not clearly linked with one or more individuals.

You can try to monitor the network traffic made by the app using a network mirror, a packet dumper or a proxy such mitmproxy (can be downloaded for free using Homebrew on a Mac). However, it is really difficult to ascertain whether or not your photos are being collected. The reason is that apps today are required to use encryption for network transfers, and as such, it can be difficult or impossible to identify your photos from other network traffic made by the app.

However, if you're certain that the app is not supposed to use any network traffic - and traffic only occurs when you select a photo, and the amount of data matches your photo, it would be a strong indication that your photo is being uploaded somewhere.

In any case, if you have a strong suspicion of foul play, then contact Apple. They have the means to investigate and ultimately remove offending apps from the App Store.