Not used your Google account since a long time? You may soon lose access

Announcing the update in a blog post, Google says that content within such accounts including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar, YouTube and Google Photos will be deleted starting December this year. In the blog, the company says that the move is aimed to reduce the risk for its users and further strengthen its security measures.

Google says that 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,” the post states.

Google also cites its internal analysis which shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up. This means that these accounts are often vulnerable, and if compromised can be used for cybercrimes like identity theft to a vector for unwanted and more.

What should Google users do to keep their accounts active?

In the post, Google lists out certain actions that a user can undertake to ensure that his/her Google account remains active. These include 

• Reading or sending an email
• Using Google Drive
• Watching a YouTube video
• Downloading an app on the Google Play Store
• Using Google Search
• Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service

It is important to state here that the new policy only applies to personal Google Accounts, and will not affect accounts for organizations like schools or businesses. Also, while the policy comes into effect immediately, Google will start deleting accounts from December this year. Also, 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). It will adopt a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again to be deleted first.