Thousands of Google accounts will be deleted beginning the end of the year, following the update of Google’s inactivity window.
The company released a memo confirming the deletion of any account that hasn’t been used for two or more years.
“Every day Google works hard to keep you and your private information safe and secure by preventing unauthorised access to your Google Account with our built-in security protections.”
“Keeping you safe means having strong privacy practices across our products that minimise how long we store your personal files and any data associated with them.”
“We want to protect your private information and prevent any unauthorised access to your account even if you’re no longer using our services.”
They confirmed even though the change came into effect this past weekend, the first deletions won’t happen until December.
“This change starts rolling out today and will apply to any Google account that’s been inactive, meaning it has not been signed into or used within a two-year period. An inactive account and any content in it will be eligible for deletion from December 1, 2023.”
“These changes do not impact you unless you have been inactive in your Google account for two years or have not used your account to sign in to any Google service for over two years.”
“If your account is considered inactive, we will send several reminder emails to both you and your recovery emails (if any have been provided) before we take any action or delete any account content. These reminder emails will go out at least 8 months before any action is taken on your account.”
After the account has been deleted, the Gmail address won’t be able to be used again in the creation of a new account, noting the easiest way to ensure an account is impacted, is to sign in at least once every two years.
Other ways the account can stay active is by reading or sending an email, watching a YouTube video while logged in, or Google searching while logged in.
Accounts with attached YouTube channels, videos or comments won’t be deleted even if they’ve been inactive, and neither will accounts gift cards that still have money.
“Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents, including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos.”
“The policy only applies to personal Google Accounts, and will not affect accounts for organisations like schools or businesses.”
This is set in an effort to protect users from hacking and spam, as older, inactive accounts are more likely to be compromised.
“This is because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two factor authentication set-up, and receive fewer security checks by the user.”
“Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set-up.”
“Meaning, these accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam.”
