Inactive account deletion

Inactive account deletion is where accounts get deleted after being unused, with the timeframe often being from 6 months to 5 years.

How it works

Often, companies delete or purge inactive accounts.

Why it is a problem

• Inactive account deletion policies will adversely affect those who had good reasons to become inactive for a long time, such as hospitalization, prison incarceration, and being in totalitarian countries (i.e. Afghanistan) which are found to have implemented prolonged internet shutdowns, and other unforeseen factors such as the 2023 Hamas hostage crisis and being trapped in scam factories in Southeast Asia for a long period.

• In the case of email services, deletion of inactive accounts could result in major inconvenience for users who used the accounts as multiple factor authentications for important services such as banking.

• Many accounts and contents that were created or owned by now-deceased users are likely affected under such policies. This could mean that immense amounts of valuable or historical significant contents will be lost over time.

• Ultimately, in both the short and long term, such policies will cause serious erosion of historical integrity, which is especially paramount as in the era of deepfakes, lies and misinformation are just as likely as to arise from the absence of data than the presence of it.

Examples

• Google has deleted inactive accounts, often citing 'privacy reasons' as a reason for doing it.