An example of a very sad Google account recovery failure -- and how it
affects real people
All, I am doing something in this message that I've never done before
on these mailing lists, at least one of which has been running
continuously for over 30 years. I'm going to share with you an example
of what Google account recovery failure means to the people involved,
and this is by no means the worst such case I've seen -- not even close,
unfortunately.
Earlier today I mentioned how (for many years) I've routinely tried to
informally help people with Google account recovery issues, because
the process can be so difficult for many persons to navigate, and
frequently fails. The announcement today of Google's inactive account
deletion policy that I blogged about earlier today:
https://lauren.vortex.com/2023/05/16/google-inactive-accounts-deletion
triggered an onslaught of concerns that for a time made my blog inaccessible
and even delayed inbound and outbound email processing.
I'm going to include below most of the text from messages I received
today from one of my readers about a specific Google account recovery
failure -- and how that's affecting a nearly 90-year-old woman. I'll
be anonymizing the message texts, and I've of course received permission
from the sender to show you this.
Unfortunately, this example is all too familiar for me. It is very
much typical of the Google account recovery problems that Google
users, so dependent on Google in their daily lives, bring to my attention in
the hope that I might be able to help.
I've been discussing these issues with Google for many years. I've
suggested "ombudspeople", account escalation and appeal procedures
that ordinary people could understand, and many other concepts.
They've all basically hit the brick wall of Google suggesting that at
their scale, nothing can be done about such "edge" cases. I disagree.
In today's regulatory and political environment, these edge cases
matter more than ever. And I will continue to do what I can, as
ineffective as these efforts often turn out to be. -L
--- Message text begins ---
Hi Lauren,
I tried to help a lovely neighbor (the quintessential
"little old lady") recently with her attempt to recover her legacy
gmail account. We ultimately gave up and she created a second, new
account instead. She had been using the original account forever (15+
years) and it was created so long ago that she didn't need to provide
any "recovery" contacts at that time (or she may have used a landline
phone number that's long been cancelled now). For at least the last
decade, she was just using the stored password to login and check her
email. When her ancient iPad finally died, she tried to add the gmail
account to her new replacement iPad. However, she couldn't remember
the password in order to login. Because the old device had changed
and she couldn't remember the password and there was no back channel
recovery method for her account, there was no way to login. I don't
know if you've ever attempted to contact a human being at google tech
support, but it's pretty much impossible. They also don't seem to
have an exception mechanism for cases like this. So she had to
abandon hopes of viewing the google photos of her (now deceased)
beloved pet, her contacts, her email subscriptions, reminders,
calendar entries, etc.
I understand the desire to keep accounts secure and the need to reduce
customer support expenses for a free service with millions of users.
But it's also frustrating for end users when there's no way to
appeal/review/reconsider the automated lockout. She's nearly 90 years
old, so I find it remarkable that she's able to use the iPad. But
it's difficult to know what to say to someone like this when she asks
"what can we do now" and there are no options...
I recognize that there are many different kinds of google users. Some
folks (like journalists, dissidents, whistleblowers, political candidates,
human rights workers, etc.) need maximum security for their communications
(and their contacts). In these cases, it makes sense to employ multifactor
authentication, end-to-end encryption, one time passwords, and other
exceptional privacy and security features. However, there are a great many
average users who find these additional steps difficult, frustrating and
(esp. in the case of elderly people who aren't necessarily very technology
savvy), sometimes bewildering. It's tough to explain that your treasured
photos can't be retrieved because you're not the sort of user that google
had in mind. Not everyone is a millennial digital native who finds this
all obvious.
--- Message text ends ---
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
T2: https://t2.social/laurenweinstein
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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