Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

pixel_popping

Huh, I don't think anyone expect Google to maintain privacy for them, Google deliberately leak 500K user info to various governments, every year [1]. https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview

josefritzishere

This is so wrong. What's the solution? Google class action lawsuit?

jmward01

Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had interactions with this, either by creating the tech or being aware of internal policy changes, read HN. Additionally many founders and decision makers in companies read these stories because it hit HN. Knowing that Google will do this changes your legal calculations. Should I trust them to store my company's data? Will they honor their BAA requirements if they are ditching other promises they made? People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN, but getting this story exposure to this group is exactly why they need to hit the homepage.

jfoworjf

This story is the one that finally pushed me to leave google. I moved off my ~20 year old Google account and deleted everything off their services including almost a decade of Google photos. I cancelled my Google one subscription for extra space. I'm now self hosting what I can and paying proton mail for everything else. I refuse to allow a company that will hand over data at the request of an administrative warrant to hold my data.

ihaveajob

"Don't be evil" they used to say.

440bx

Promises are broken, policies are changed and political regimes vary. You need to make sure that you consider the future and not just now. And that means NEVER handing your data over in the first place.

goosejuice

We could and should have better privacy laws, though foreigners will always be subject to less protection. That said, a lot of this comes down to a failure in education around privacy and the cultural norm around folks thinking they have nothing to hide. The intuition most people have around privacy, and security, is incredibly poor.

malux85

I feel bad for both sides in this. Google can be put under so much pressure by the government, they are basically forced to do what they says; yes they can fight it, but if the government wants something badly, they will get it, they have powers (especially under the very broad definition of 'national security') to just get automatic compliance, using the same powers they can silence the companies from publishing anything about it too. I of course feel bad for the student here too, he should not be targeted for exercising his rights to peaceful protest. But Google is not the enemy here, I would bet good money their hand is forced to comply and their mouth is silenced. The enermy here is the overreaching government and ICE

jauntywundrkind

It must really really suck to be a data-holder, that every single government out there views as some piggy bank, sitting there waiting to smash & grab. It's certainly been quite the turn recently. But being between the people and the governments that seemingly inevitably will turn into arch fascist pricks & go to war against the citizens is not an enviable position. Hopefully many jurisdictions start enacting laws that insist companies build unbreakable backdoorless crypto. Hopefully we see legislation that is the exact opposite of chat control mandatory backdoors. It's clear the legal firewalls are ephemeral, can crumble, given circumstances and time. We need a more resolute force to protect the people: we need the mathematicians/cryptographers!

diego_moita

Does anyone remember when western nations were freaking out that Huawei would handle everybody personal data to the Chinese government? Now, please tell me that American companies are better at privacy than the Chinese ones. Btw, some alternative email providers in truly democratic countries: * ProtonMail (Switzerland) * TutaMail, Posteo, Mailbox.org and Eclipso (Germany) * Runbox (Norway) * Mailfence (Belgium)

quadrifoliate

Honestly, I think the author is expecting too much from companies that are under jurisdiction of the US Government, especially in the situation as of 2026. It is telling that when they say "federal government" in the article, they implicitly mean the US Federal Government and not those of the UK or Trinidad and Tobago. The author (in my opinion) needs to raise this with their own governments (UK is probably the one where they can get better action) to push for data sovereignty laws so that it's at least UK or Trinidad and Tobago that are the governments involved in investigating their data, via appropriate international warrants.

eaf7e281

I still don't understand. Who gave ICE such power, and who is ordering them to do all this? To me, ICE's actions are similar to those of a private army.

woodydesign

Every time this happens the debate goes the same way — trust Google or don't, switch to Proton, self-host everything. But the real issue I believe isn't whether we trust Google. It's that the data existed somewhere it could be taken from in the first place. I've been thinking about this a lot while working on a side project. I ended up making it work entirely offline — no server, no account, no network calls. Not out of paranoia, just because I couldn't come up with a good reason to ask users to trust me with their data. Turns out the best privacy policy is just not having anyone's data.

WalterBright

I simply assume that everything that travels out of my home through a wire gets tracked and stored by the government. Everywhere you go, if your phone is in your pocket, you are being tracked and stored, and available to the government. Everywhere your car goes, is tracked and stored and available to the government. BTW, the J6 protesters were all tracked and identified by their cell phone data.

orbisvicis

How was Amandla even identified? Stingray at the protest? Then how was the phone number linked to Google? Facial recognition at the protest? I guess his details are on file under terms of the visa? So then the government simply asks Google for all details on the individual by name? Either is pretty disturbing.

renewiltord

Recently in SF, the police have been very open about their use of drones to follow thieves (completely violating their privacy). It is like China where there are posters telling you drone surveillance is in effect. I think we need to expand CCPA so that the government cannot simply spy on you by claiming that “criminals” are near you. Even criminals should have their privacy protected or else they will just label everyone criminals.

paulddraper

The author not say whether the subpoena prevented advance notification. The Google policy he linked to says: > We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. We’ll provide notice after a legal prohibition is lifted.

eurleif

The linked Google policy states: >We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. The post states that his lawyer has reviewed the subpoena, but doesn't mention whether or not it contained a non-disclosure order. That's an important detail to address if the claim is that Google acted against its own policy.

forinti

Such are the times that he feels he must say that he only attended the protest "for all of five minutes" and that he was protesting "what we saw as genocide". He is almost ashamed of his views because of the current climate but he didn't do anything wrong, apparently.

asdfman123

This is a good reminder that you should assume there's no privacy on the internet whatsoever, unless you really go to extensive lengths to cover your tracks. And even then, you have to be really careful.