Google has this power, and uses it quite often. And you don’t have to be famous, or even do anything wrong to lose access to your Google account, and your family photos, your email address, your phone number… or anything else you’ve trusted Google to handle for you.

Meet Mark (tech.slashdot.org/…/dad-photographs-son-for-docto…). Mark’s young son had an infection on his penis and he was asked by the doctor’s office to take a photo so the doctor could evaluate it (this was during Covid). Google’s AI child porn detector flagged it, and started a process which got the police involved (they quickly realized that there was no crime), but Google still shutdown Mark’s account and hasn’t given it back.

If you have anything you value inside Google’s (or any other company’s) ecosystem, you should have a backup because this happens quite often (don’t even think about doing a chargeback against Google if they take money from you that they shouldn’t have).