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The data you put in the cloud is mostly … not yours anymore!
When you put data in the cloud, on Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive or iCloud then that data is no longer yours. And the cloud provider can cut you off immediately, with the only explanation ‘you’ve violated our terms of service’. Have a nice day!
In 2022 a father sa a swelling in the pubic area of his son, a toddler. He called the doctor, who requested photos. The father made photos with his phone and sent them to the doctor. A backup of those photos was automatically made and sent – just as automatically – to Google Drive. And then things went south. Two days later the father was disconnected from 100% of his Google account. The explanation was ‘’Sexual abuse of children’.
A reconsideration request was denied. Al that time the man could not access his email, the contact data of his relations, or the photos and videos he had stored there. Because he also had his phone plan via Google he had to apply for another phone number with another provider, his Google phone number was also blocked. The accounts linked to his Google phone number were also inaccessible. Long story short, his complete digital life was unreachable.
A week after this blockage the police investigated this matter, but the father was only informed 10 months later. The police then informed him that they had found no reason to suspect he had committed a crime, or even that a crime had been committed at all. Google had known this since a week after the incident, but did not consider that a reason to release the account. And when the father asked for the release of his account, based on the police’s reaction, Google responded by permanently deleting the account and all the related data 2 months later. And they issued a statement how despicable they think child abuse is.
This just an example. Don’t think, this won’t happen to me. This type of incident happens more often, much more often than we want. It doesn’t always hit the news, but it’s always a tragedy for the victim.
You don’t own your own data in the cloud
If you read the terms of service carefully there are lots of reasons why cloud providers can freeze and remove your accounts and your data. In plain English that means that you’re not the owner of the data you put in the cloud. And whether or not you’ve done something wrong, if you're cut off from your accounts and data, the chances of getting them back are smaller than a snowballs chance in hell. Big tech is enormously bureaucratic en and they would rather cause huge problems for a user that suffer any kind of reputation damage themselves. ‘Google facilitates child abuse’ is just more newsworthy than ‘Google dupes a user’ and that first one costs them much more money than the last.
Your mail is also no longer yours
Of Gmail it’s certain – proven - that Google reads your mail automatically. If that yields something ‘dangerous’ it will be read by a Google employee. The other big tech companies are probably no better. The excuse is ‘checking if you’re sticking to our terms’ and ‘improving our service’. In the mean time AI’s are being trained on your mail without your explicit consent. I’m sure they hid it somewhere in the terms, but who has time to read those enormous volumes. That’s how they use your intellectual property to improve their services. In other words, they use your ideas to improve their services. Your mail too is no longer yours
You’re paying a HIGH price
Big tech tells you their accounts are free. That you’re not paying them with cash or card is not the same thing as free. You’re paying with your data and your privacy. How much are they worth to you? Probably more than what you’re saving by using a ‘free’ account.
It’s no different for business accounts
Maybe very big customers can force better terms, but for small and medium businesses they can take it or leave it – they just have to accept the terms. And they don’t differ much form consumer terms on essential points. The main difference is that now you do have to pay, but you still don’t own your accounts or data.
If an employee stores a file that, rightfully nor wrongfully, gets flagged as a ‘terms infringement’, what will happen to your company data? Have you ever taken the time to find out? And if you can’t access your company data, what will happen to your company?
Because if you’re also using your business Google of Facebook accounts to log in all over the place, you can suddenly no longer access the data on those websites or in those SAAS applications when your accounts are blocked. Every day many people are victimized, and there’s nothing they can do to prevent it or to fix it. As I said, take it or leave it.
How do I prevent potential loss?
- Make local back-ups: all digital assets you don’t want to lose should be stored not only in the cloud, but also locally. Then you can still access them when your accounts are disabled.
- Use a paid email provider: there are many smaller email providers that charge a monthly fee, but don’t read your mail. And I guarantee you your privacy is worth more than the amount they ask. You can also use your ISP’s email, but that means your email address wil change if you change provider.
- Log in with an email address: using your Google or Facebook account to log in everywhere is easy, but you’re running more risk: you’re immediately cut off from all your accounts when something goes wrong with that big tech account. When you use an email address with a password and second factor (SMS or authenticator) you’re at least as safe. Even if that email address no longer works for email, you can still use it to log in.
- Use a local password manager: of course you’re already using a different, generated password for each website (aren’t you?). But if you store those in the password manager that comes with your big tech account you still lose everything when that big tech account is blocked. A local password manager like KeePass always gives you access to your passwords. And tools like KeePass encrypt everything, so it’s perfectly safe to keep a copy in the cloud, for when your laptop dies on you.
But Hugo, what about my corporate data in the cloud?
That has all sorts of issues to, but I’ll write about that another time. Is that taking you to long and you want to know right now? Make an appointment with me, no strings attached, and we’ll have a look, together, at you situation.