There was a video with some of the datacenter security measures, e.g. iris scanning (just to get yours in the DB required approvals from senior people). On the actual floor, to which very few have actual access, you need to badge both on your way in and out, individually. If you badge out without having badged in, the door won't open and an alarm will go off.

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-engineer-stalked-teen...

Snowden's revelations (2013) were a major watershed. There'd been several measures taken since, based on what I heard on the outside, largely through discussions, mostly public, a few direct, with Google staff via G+.

Starting on, of all days, November 9th, 2016, I began regularly posting an image of Jewish shop windows shattered during Krystallnacht, asking whether Google were thinking of brownshirt-proofing their data. That generated responses including from G+'s architect (then in a role with user data safety & privicy), and the data security lead.

It wasn't until some time later that I realised I'd entirely accidentally picked the anniversary of the event for the post. Though the coincidence was useful.

My understanding was that numerous protections were in place by that time. I continue to have concerns.

This is so incredibly cringey. You're actively building the panopticon and yet you think of yourselves as righteous warriors for justice.

I don't mean this to be a personal attack, but yours is such a revealing comment about the mindset of people inside these surveillance behemoths.

(See also: this "pledge" http://neveragain.tech/ to not build registries for targeting citizens...signed by a bunch of people who work at companies whose entire business is targeting citizens with ads)

OK, Google.

Sounds like you'd be surprised at what storage, and backup engineers have access to.

/s