Samsung Phones secretly sending your photos to your Contacts. Read how to solve it.

A bug affecting the latest Samsung Phones has been sending out users photos to random contacts through its default texting app.
According to complaints aired on reddit and Samsung's official forums the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the latest Samsung Galaxy S-series phones ranging from the S7 to S9+ are the ones which have been affected.

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

Users say their phones show no evidence of sending out the photos and are only made aware when the recipient informs them about it.
One user on reddit wrote that his phone had sent his whole photo gallery while he slept to a contact who luckily is his girlfriend.

It is still unclear what exactly is causing the random sharing which is ranging from a single photo to a whole gallery, but it seems to be caused by Samsung's latest texting app update which attempts to modernise SMS.
The affected users have revealed that they recently received an update to their texting app known as Rich Communication Services (RCS) before the bizzare photo sharing incidences began.

RCS Global Launches

Launched by over 55 operators in more than 30 countries, RCS is an innovation meant to replace SMS by introducing features such as Read receipts, Typing indicators and Picture messaging to the ordinary texting app.
So far, the RCS update seems to be the only explanation of this issue. Samsung have so far only indicated that they are aware of the complaints and have technical teams looking into the issues.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

In the meantime there are only two known solutions which Samsung owners can use to avoid having their photos sent out to their contacts:

1. Switch from the default texting app to another app such as Google's.  Android Messages or Textra.
2. Revoke your texting App's permission to access your Phone Storage until Samsung fixes this bug. Here's how to do that: 

• From a Home screen, swipe up or down from the center of the display to access the apps screen.
   These instructions only apply to Standard mode and the default Home screen layout.
• Navigate: Settings  > Apps.
• Ensure All apps is selected (upper-left).
   If necessary, tap the Dropdown icon (upper-right) then select All apps.
• Locate then select the appropriate app.
   If system apps aren't visible, tap the Menu icon  (upper-right) > Show system apps.
• If available, tap Permissions (App settings section).
• Select available permissions (e.g., Camera, Contacts, Location, etc.) to turn on  or off .
   If prompted, review the message then tap CANCEL or DENY.
   The image below is an example.

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