Can the photos/videos I deleted a year ago can still be on my iPhone or on theinternet?

[iMore Question]

Hi all,

I have been getting paranoid lately and decided to ask for your insight on this issue. A year ago, I took photos of some personal information (cc, passport, etc), and deleted them a month after, along with some videos that reveal my face and sound. A couple of months ago my phone was stolen and ever since I am not able to get a good sleep as I am concerned about identity theft, or even social engineering that may occur in the future due to my losing my phone.

Here are some questions I would be very happy if you could answer;

-Once a photo/video uploaded to iCloud or Google Photos, does it stay in their servers forever even after I deleted it from the trash, like does consumer content ever completely erased? If no, should I be worried about them getting hacked? It's been more than a year since I deleted that personally-identifiable content.

-I know there are certain forensic tools that can recover data from iPhones, can they recover the data that was deleted from the phone more than a year ago? Like photos and videos. I'm worried a criminal would use the phone (Find My iPhone wasn't working, so I couldn't blacklist the IMEI) and get caught after committing a crime, and law-enforcement find my ID in there when they dig it up, I know it sounds like paranoia, but know it's a possibility.

-What advice would you give to continue my life being not worried about such things? It is definitely affecting my daily life.

Thank you all!

 

[Annie_M]

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