Like many other articles you read, this one is written in Google Doc, part of the Mountain View firm’s professional suite. A very common habit, that of storing documents, images, videos, contacts on the cloud test: and so it was also for Mark, the protagonist of an incredible story told by the New York Times, who from one day to the next found himself with his digital life completely erased.
A story with a happy ending
One evening in February 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, Mark notices something wrong with his baby. The child has a red and painful penis: worried, the mother consults a nurse to schedule an emergency consultation the next morning. The health worker asks her to send photos so that the doctor could examine them in advance. The mother takes the photos and sends them through the doctor’s messaging system, so the doctor identifies the problem and prescribes antibiotics. In a few days the child heals.
Mountain View Hostage
This is the good side of technology. The bad side announces itself two days later, with a notification on Mark’s phone: his account has been disabled due to “malicious content” which is “a serious violation of Google’s policies and may be illegal”. A “learn more” link leads to a list of possible reasons, including “child sexual abuse and exploitation”. He is confused at first, but then he remembers his son’s infection, and immediately begins to think of a misunderstanding: they must have mistaken those images for child pornography, he thinks.
But Mark has worked for years in a large tech company, precisely on an automatic system to eliminate video content reported by users as controversial. He knows, therefore, that these systems often involve the presence of a human to ensure that computers do not make mistakes and he is confident that his case will be solved as soon as he can explain his reasons for him.
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So she fills out a form to request a review of Google’s decision, telling about her son’s infection. In the meantime, she can no longer access his emails, the calendar, the contacts of friends and colleagues, the photos of him and his family. What’s more: his Google Fi account (in the US the hi-tech giant also acts as an internet and telephone provider) is suspended, so he no longer has a mobile number and must sign a contract with another operator. In turn, without access to the old number and e-mail, he cannot have the confirmation codes to enter many of his other internet accounts. In short, for sending her baby photos to the doctor, her digital life is hostage to Google.
A novel by Kafka
And not just the digital one: the Mountain View review team also reported a video of him, and the San Francisco Police Department has already started investigating him, which is one of the reasons why in the history of New York Times, former computer scientist asks to use a cover name.
A few days after the appeal was sent, Google replies to Mark that it would not restore the account, without further explanation. In December 2021, Mark receives in the mail a letter from the San Francisco Police Department informing him that he is being investigated, as well as copies of search warrants served on Google and its Internet service provider. The police had access to everything in Mark’s Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and all the documents, photos and videos he had stored in the cloud. of the company. So he calls the investigator dealing with his case, who explains to him that the investigation is closed and no behavior against the law has been detected. The official had tried to get in touch with Mark, but his phone number and his email address were unreachable.
Mark then asks the policeman to report his innocence to Google so that he can get his account back. The answer is no, he has to do it himself. thus provides the documents to Mountain View, which however does not respond, and indeed sends him, a few weeks later, a new notice: his account will be permanently deleted, decades of data, documents, memories will be deleted forever. Mark won’t sue: “I’ve decided it’s probably not worth the $ 7,000,” he explains. He still hopes to be able to get his information back, and the only possibility seems to be in the good sense of the San Francisco police, who has stored the contents of his Google account on a USB stick.
The numbers
A Google spokesperson told the NY Times that Google crawls users’ personal images only when they take “positive action,” such as backing up the images to Google Photos. If the system detects images that may involve child abuse or exploitation, the company is required by law to report the suspicion to the CyberTipLine of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. In 2021, Mountain View brought 621,583 cases of material regarding possible violence against children to NCMEC’s attention, while NCMEC alerted authorities to 4,260 potential victims, a list that also includes Mark’s son.