Google told the world it stopped reading your emails in 2017. It didn't. It just changed the reason. "Smart Features" scan every email, attachment, and chat using AI — on by default outside the EU. To fully opt out, find and disable two separate settings. Miss one and scanning continues. In the EU and UK, these ship turned off — telling you everything about what Google thinks of the privacy risk. The machine reading your love letters doesn't care whether it's reading them for ads or "features.". Google says Gemini doesn't train on your Workspace data. But Gemini reads your emails, documents, and chats for "features" — turned on without asking. From September 2025, Google started training AI on user chats and uploads unless you explicitly opt out. Court testimony from a Google VP revealed the company used publisher content for AI even when those publishers opted out — internal docs showed they kept 80 billion tokens of supposedly excluded material. The line between "accessing" and "training" is wherever Google draws it on any given day.
What they claim: Google states student information in Core Services is never used for ad targeting, sold, or used for AI training.
What we found: New Mexico AG Hector Balderas sued Google for collecting children's locations, browsing histories, YouTube habits, voice recordings, and saved passwords — extending surveillance from classrooms into homes via syncing. Denmark banned Workspace in schools after finding Google acts as a stand-alone controller. Norway declared it not legal. 24 Danish municipalities never conducted a DPIA.
What they claim: Google states data is not used for generative AI training outside your domain without permission.
What we found: In November 2025, Drive settings auto-opted users into Gemini content access. On September 2, 2025, a sample of user chats and uploads began training AI unless explicitly disabled. Court testimony from Google VP Eli Collins revealed Google used publisher content for AI Overviews even when publishers opted out — internal documents showed 80 billion of 160 billion tokens remained after filtering.
What they claim: Google stopped scanning Gmail for ad targeting. Paid Workspace accounts have data segregation.
What we found: Free Gmail users still get targeted ads via cross-service profiling — search, YouTube, Maps. Paid accounts get a data wall. Free accounts get no protection. Three billion free Gmail users' data flows freely between services. Privacy is a subscription, not a right.
What they claim: Google Workspace markets itself as a professional communication platform where users manage their own inbox.
What we found: Admins can read any employee email via four methods: password reset, Google Vault, email delegation (set up without notification via API), and super admin access. Vault preserves deleted emails and unsent drafts. Email delegation can be configured without the employee knowing.
What they claim: Google tightly restricts employee access through industry-leading safeguards.
What we found: Leaked documents revealed Google fired at least 80 employees between 2018-2020 for data misuse. In 10% of 2020 cases, employees accessed, modified, or deleted user data. Some spied on other employees. In 2010, engineer David Barksdale was fired for spying on four minors' Google Voice call logs and chat transcripts.
What they claim: Google's Marketplace requires apps to undergo security verification and pass privacy checks.
What we found: Researchers find scope creep is the norm. In 2025, attackers used a compromised OAuth token to silently export data from hundreds of corporate environments without login alerts. Permissions accumulate over years. CISA now lists blocking high-risk OAuth scopes as a required configuration.
What they claim: Google offers Sovereign Controls for Workspace with data region selection and client-side encryption.
What we found: The US CLOUD Act lets authorities compel data regardless of storage location. A Microsoft exec told the French Senate under oath no US company can guarantee European data stays out of American hands. Google's client-side encryption keys still operate inside Google's infrastructure. The EU's sovereign cloud contract with Google-Thales was called sovereignty washing by the European cloud industry.
What they claim: Google announced in 2017 it would stop scanning Gmail content for ad targeting.
What we found: Smart Features still scans every email, attachment, chat, and calendar event using AI — on by default. In the EU/UK these features ship off by default, an implicit admission of the risk. Full opt-out requires disabling two separate buried settings. Miss one and scanning continues.
What they claim: Google's account settings presented controls to turn off location tracking.
What we found: Even with Location History off, Google collected location via Web and App Activity — ongoing since 2014. 40 state AGs sued: $391.5M settlement. California: $93M. Arizona: $85M. Total: $569.5M. Applies to all Google accounts including Workspace. Web and App Activity is in every account by default.