Summary:
Content that has been hidden (or deleted) from public view, including albums related to banned users, is still accessible via the tag search system. This represents a critical privacy and legal compliance issue, particularly in cases involving sensitive or prohibited content. As it did for us.

IPS Version: 4.7.20

Reproduction Steps:

1. A user uploads images to a gallery album.

2. The user is banned and the album is hidden (via moderation tools).

3. The album becomes inaccessible via direct browsing or the user's profile.

4. However, if the uploaded images were tagged (e.g., "RockLobster123"), searching the tag (e.g., "https://example.tld/search/?tags=RockLobster123") still:

   • Displays thumbnails of those images.

   • Allows the public to see preview images despite the album being hidden.

Expected Result:
Once content is hidden, removed, or associated with a banned account, all public traces of that content - including tag references, thumbnails, and search indexing - should be purged or at minimum no longer retrievable. Especially after 6 months.

Actual Result:

• Images from hidden albums still appear in tag-based searches.

• Clicking them may result in an error or "no access," but thumbnails load and still publicly associate with banned or prohibited content.

• These items persist in cached search results and tag listings, even after rebuilding indexes.

Additional Notes:
We have internal moderation policies for preserving content temporarily for law enforcement review, but this flaw made supposedly hidden material retrievable to end users. Please advise if this is a known bug or an indexing issue, and if there’s a way to purge tags and search traces more reliably. I've since deleted the album in question and it is still appearing in search results.

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention! I can confirm this should be further reviewed and I have logged an internal bug report for our development team to investigate and address as necessary, in a future maintenance release.