kestrell

From the article
Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them
by Chris Hoffman
https://www.howtogeek.com/709693/why-you-should-delete-emails-instead-of-archiving-them/

In the USA, emails are considered “abandoned” after 180 days. The government can look at these emails without a warrant thanks to the Electronic Communications Protection Act, a law passed in 1986 when electronic communications were very different.

As
Wired
https://www.wired.com/2013/06/how-ridiculous-is-it-that-email-but-not-mail-has-been-left-out-of-privacy-laws/
pointed out in 2013, “It’s beyond ridiculous that email (but not mail) has been left out of privacy laws.”

There have been attempts to fix this loophole and require the government to get a warrant before accessing emails over 180 days old. The most notable attempt was in 2016, when the Email Privacy Act
https://iapp.org/news/a/the-email-privacy-act-what-happened-and-where-we-are-now/
passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives and went on to die in the Senate. As of January 2021, the law stands.

So, if you’re storing a lot of old emails in an online account, you should keep this in mind.

Time to Delete Those Old Useless Emails