too and wasn't aware of this. So this was done by the app/system without any action by you?

How were you notified and were instructions included as to how to access the photos?

I have an album on my phone with my vaccine card. It's always been in "gallery". Now, I admit, I only assumed gallery was resident on the phone - and thus I always select it as a place for my photos v. the Google photos app.

Today when I tried to find the album in gallery it was no longer there. It's in the Google photo app now.

I back up to my computer. But I am going to get a network drive for storage.

1. All photos stay on the phone, Photos app backs up nothing to the cloud.
2. All photos stay on the phone, Photos app backs up some or all to the cloud, your choosing.
3. Some/all photos get transferred to the cloud and do not reside on the phone.

I am running option 2. What little I use the camera phone gets manually folded into my DSLR photos for storage and backup.

Not intentionally anyway.

I've always made a point of trying.to keepy my pics on my phone and off google. It looks to me now like it all defaults to google photos!

Maybe.

I have it in my mind that Google will somehow use them for something, even if I try to say no. Am I being too cautious?

Properly handled, Google cannot even see them as images, but I doubt Google is handling them with that level of proper encryption.

and it says they can do whatever they want.

Maybe that's ok for now, but what if, say, Musk decides to buy Google?

It just irks me the loss of control!!