Question Photobucket forcing biometric data collection to access old accounts

[Stg-Flame]

I haven't used PB in well over a decade and aside from some old gaming screenshots, I genuinely don't remember what all I have in my account, but I received an e-mail about my account being inactive for too long and will be deleted soon. However, when I tried to recover it just for nostalgia's sake, I discovered that you have to agree to their biometric data collection policy just to access your account. It seems like more and more companies are headed in this direction which I cannot put into words how much I detest this. The only reason I'm making this thread is because I'm fairly sure I have pictures of my friends and I (back in our 20s) on my account and I don't trust them not to already have scanned the data off my pictures - though I can't be certain what all I uploaded to that account because I can't access it without agreeing to this policy.

Taken straight from the first paragraph in the policy:

By agreeing to this Biometric Policy you grant Photobucket, to the extent permitted by the laws of your region, the right to sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from the disclosure of your Public User Uploaded Content which may contain Biometric Information that may be extracted.

And further down:

Our Services include User Uploaded Content storage services which may involve storing your Biometric Information. For instance, if you voluntarily upload a photo containing your face to our Services, we will store it to provide the Service you requested. By agreeing to our use of your Biometric Information you grant Photobucket, to the extent permitted by the laws of your region, commercialize, including the right to license your Public User Uploaded Content to third parties for the scanning and processing of the Public User Uploaded Content, including extracting physical features, e.g. measurements, of your Biometric Information (e.g., face, iris, etc.), for the purpose of artificial intelligence and machine learning training and the subsequent uses derived therefrom. Outside the User Uploaded Content you store on our Services and rights granted above, Photobucket does not collect, use, or store your Biometric Information outside of in the form of User Uploaded Content. Photobucket will not collect, use, store, disclose, or allow a third party to do any of these activities, if you opt-out.

The part that irritates me is that you have to agree to this policy before you can opt out of it, but before you can opt out, they've already scraped all of your data.

In any agreement between Photobucket and a third party to sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from the disclosure of your Biometric Information from your Public User Uploaded Content, Photobucket will contractually require that the third party collect, store, transmit, and protect your Biometric Information using a reasonable standard of care that is at least as protective as the way Photobucket collects, stores, transmits, and protects other confidential and sensitive personal information.

They don't even state what this means and given how often we hear about data breaches, this is laughable.
And from the same paragraph...

Additionally, in any agreement between Photobucket and a third party to sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from the disclosure of your Biometric Information, Photobucket will contractually require that the third party, unless otherwise required by law or court order, only retain the Biometric Information until the initial purpose for collecting the Biometric Information has been satisfied, unless legally required to keep it for a different period.

Which they don't even state what that could be or for how long. I know most policies are like this - kept intentionally vague; but when it comes to my biometric data and privacy, I want to know what people are going to be doing with this information.

All that being said, the worst part is how they're handling the account deletions. In order to opt-out of this policy, you are required to delete your account, which is honestly fine by me. However, you can either start the account deletion process which requires that you log in and in order to log in, you have to agree to the policy; or you can e-mail the support team and request an account deletion (which I did), but they'll tell you that you have to log in to finalize the account deletion. Everything that I asked them resulted in being told that I have to agree to this policy (they're really trying to hard-sell this) in order to delete my account. In the end, I don't trust any company with my personal information these days - especially if they're willing to pull this shit. They do state at the very bottom that you have 45 days after the opt-out period before they can license or sell your content, but they've already stated above that they are going to retain it as well as ship it to third-parties for "retention purposes" until the sale can commence and in the same part, they claim that if your data goes to a third party, they can't promise they will be able to recall your data, should you fully opt-out of this policy. So they plan on selling your data to third parties immediately and even if you opt-out, your data is already all over the world in the hands of people who are no longer legally obligated to keep your data private.

I know the "enshitification" of the internet has been happening for a while now, but this one actually irritated the hell out of me. Maybe I'm just turning into an old man who yells at clouds, but I despise how companies don't even treat people like people anymore.