Google shared on Tuesday that it’s cleaning house, deleting accounts that have been inactive for two or more years in order to avoid security risks.
Google vice president of product management Ruth Kricheli shared in an announcement on Tuesday that neglected accounts are more likely to use old or repeated passwords and less likely to have security measures like two-step authentication enabled.
“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 said.
Accounts that are deleted will see their data across Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Photos, Google Calendar, and YouTube erased.
The tech giant did note that the policy only applies to personal Google accounts, not those that are business or school-associated.
Before deleting an account, Google shared that it will send several notices to the email and recovery emails associated with them.
After that, the company will start deleting the accounts in December at the earliest. Kricheli shared that accounts that were created and never used again will be removed first.
Google shared that users worried about their accounts being deleted will only need to log in to save them.
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