If you haven’t signed in to your Google Account for over 2 years, it will be deleted

[ad_1]

Google will delete accounts older than two years to avoid security risks, the company announced on Tuesday.

The tech giant said neglected accounts are more likely to use old or repeated passwords and less likely to have two-step authentication enabled and run security checks on the account.

“This means 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, such as spam,” said Ruth Kricheli, vice president of product management at Google.

Deleted accounts would erase data on Gmail, Google Drive and Docs, Google Photos, Google Calendar and YouTube.

The policy applies to personal Google Accounts, not company or school-associated Google Accounts.

Google said it will send several alerts to inactive accounts and recovery emails associated with those accounts. Deletions will begin no earlier than December, and accounts created and never used again will be removed first, Kricheli said.

To keep an account active, a user simply needs to log in. This includes logins to third-party websites and apps.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To learn more, visit https://www.npr.org.

[ad_2]