Google to delete accounts inactive for more than 2 years

New Delhi: Google announced on Tuesday that it will delete all personal accounts, including their content, that stay inactive for more than two years, IANS reported.

The said accounts' content in Google Workspace, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calender etc., will be deleted, in addition to data on YouTube and Google Photos.

Though the announcement was made on Tuesday, the deleting will start only as early as December 2023.

"The policy only applies to personal Google Accounts and will not affect accounts for organisations like schools or businesses," Ruth Kricheli, VP of Product Management at Google, said in a statement.

Google's update is in parallel with industry standards of retention and account deletion. This policy will limit Google's time to retain unused personal; information.

"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," Google explained.

Google's internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have a 2-step verification set up.

This means that 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.

Before deleting an account, Google will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided).