Photos failing WS.Reputation.1 test

I returned from being out of town on 10/14/16 and started my computer which has been off for two weeks. Norton updated itself at that time. Since then, the background scans have been walking my disks finding files, mostly photos I have taken, that fail the WS.Reputation.1 test. It then deletes or quarantines the file. Looking back in my activity log, I see probably 50 photos that have been deleted. Other files include Norton backup files! I don't claim to understand the details of this test, but it sounds like the system uploads a hash or checksum and matches it against known bad files. The "details" say that my photos have "very few users" (I would expect so), that the file is "very new" (actually the photos were taken years ago), and the file risk is "medium". My systems have been running Norton for several years and none of these files have failed scans before. I have a firewall installed and do not download much of anything onto my systems. I seriously doubt that my photos are compromised in any way. I do not understand how a JPG could have a bad "reputation" in the first place! With all the deletions, it is going to take me many hours to put my photo folders back together. So before I shut down Norton entirely, here are my questions if anyone can answer them:

1. Is there a way to tell Norton (version 22.8.0.50) to not delete any files without asking? I can't find such an option.

2. Is there a way to disable this "feature" that uploads file profiles for reputation analysis?

3. Is there a way to view all of the files in Quarantine, or do I have to go through the logs one at a time?

I have already chatted with a Norton rep who probably didn't understand what my complaint was. I suspect that some new piece of code is being too aggressive with the files it sends for reputation analysis.

Thank you for any assistance.

Hi DDowTX,

Yours is the second reported case of this happening, and you are correct that reputation scanning should be restricted to portable executables.  Please see the other thread on this topic here:

https://community.norton.com/en/forums/norton-deleting-family-archive-photos

I will bring this to the attention of Symantec, since something is going very wrong here.

More info:

My other system (which has most of these files in their original form) is running 22.7.1.32 and has not detected any suspicious photos.

In reading the documentation about WS.Reputation.1, the only files that should be submitted for reputation analysis are executables. So I guess the newest version is improperly submitting more than just executable files.

I have shut off the Download Intelligence feature in hopes that it will stop this behavior.