Major Swiss telecommunications provider, Swisscom, has ‘accidentally’ deleted the data of hundreds of customers who use its myCloud service.

Swisscom says that the issue was down to a software bug in the cloud system, which usually stores various files like photos and music.

The telecom company claims that of its 40,000 users, only a few hundred private and free account clients were affected. The issue dates back to 2018.

They further say that files were permanently erased because of “optimisation tasks” that moved the data to the wrong storage area.

A different infrastructure and back-up system are used for those who pay for their data to be stored.

Permanent deletion

Although the company initially said that they thought all of the information would be restored, Swisscom later revealed that bringing the files back would not be possible.

It was claimed the reasons behind this were due to the inadequacy of the back-up storage for the customers that opt for the free choice of storage from myCloud. They said: “All data in myCloud is stored multiple times, locally and geographically redundantly in Swisscom data centres. Even if a data centre failed completely, the data would still remain secure at all times.”

The telecommunication organisation continued: “This free solution for private customers does not feature a traditional back-up. If users actively delete their data, they have to do so in the confidence that the data has been permanently deleted, as is the case with all other comparable services. In this regard, Swisscom deploys a similar architecture to that of third-party services.”

Swisscom apologise

In speaking about the fault, Swisscom believes that all those affected have been notified. They also say, “Approximately 98% of those affected have lost less than a twentieth of their total data stored,”

An apology was also issued in which they continued to say: “Swisscom very much regrets this incident. We are aware that this has caused great inconvenience for our customers…We have taken all possible measures to ensure that such an incident does not occur again in the future.”

Swisscom does not see themselves giving any compensation for the mistake.