Google is going to remove Gmail and Photos accounts that have been lying with no activity for two years, as part of a change in its inactivity policy, the company has announced. In a bid to preserve storage space, the tech giant in 2020 had said that it would delete content stored in inactive accounts only and not delete the account itself.
"...To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products. 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), YouTube and Google Photos," Ruth Kricheli, Vice President, Product Management, Google, said in a statement.
The change only applies to personal Google Accounts and will not affect accounts for organisations like schools or businesses.
This update aligns with the company's policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information.
"...Even with these protections, if an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it is 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," Kricheli added.