Have you been the victim of a Gmail data breach?

Without even knowing it, your emails may be being read by companies, and you may feel that this is a Gmail data breach.

The recent admission by Google that they’ve been allowing companies to scan emails is a worrying one. App developers are reportedly able to access data in Gmail mailboxes to use it for marketing purposes. Even employees were manually reading mailboxes in order to train AI software to then do it for them.

If this applies to you, whether this can be classed as a Gmail data breach or not is apparently open for debate.

Is there a huge Gmail data breach scandal?

Is there a huge Gmail data breach scandal going on right under our noses?

This story comes a year after Google themselves reportedly stopped looking at emails after a lawsuit was launched in America for illegal wiretapping. Despite their change of behaviour, they’re apparently still allowing third parties to scan emails.

Names, subject lines, text contained in messages and email signatures can all be scanned. This can then be used for market research and marketing to the users.

Can this issue be classed as a Gmail data breach scandal?

There is reportedly some debate over whether this can be classed as a huge Gmail data breach or not.

According to reports, Google only allows companies to collect and share data in-line with Google’s privacy policies. If all is above board, and users are agreeing to the privacy policies, are we consenting to our emails being read?

I think most people would not expect that their emails are being read; especially for marketing purposes. You could understand software that can pick up on keywords that may relate to malicious activity, but for marketing?

Are lines such as “access to your information” enough for people to really understand what this means? i.e., that our private and potentially sensitive emails are being read? In the wrong hands, information from our emails could easily lead to falling victim to financial fraud and similar crimes.

Any victim of a genuine Gmail data breach could be entitled to claim data breach compensation. How these latest revelations could fall foul of GDPR will be interesting to see.

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