Verify Your Email Archive

As part of my ongoing series on creating a full backup of all your old emails, we want to take some time to verify that we got everything okay. In today’s Tip of the Week, I’ll give you several pointers on how to go about doing this. In the last installment, we’ll make a couple backups and (optionally) delete everything from your email provider. In the news: AI firms want your financial data; Google Search moves to AI chat format; AI bots transcribing all your meetings; Mayo Clinic using AI to transcribe ER visits; CISA exposes credentials in massive screw up; school buses are being turned into mass surveillance machines; FBI wants access to all the license plate readers; some in Congress are trying to kill license plate readers. Article Links Experts warn of privacy risks as AI firms looks to connect to financial accounts: https://therecord.media/experts-warn-of-privacy-cyer-risks-ai-finance Google Search as you know it is over: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over You Are Being Recorded: https://blog.yaelwrites.com/you-are-being-recorded Mayo Clinic is Using AI to Listen to Emergency Room Visits: https://www.404media.co/mayo-clinic-is-using-ai-to-listen-to-emergency-room-visits US cyber agency CISA exposed reams of passwords and cloud keys to the open web: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/us-cyber-agency-cisa-exposed-reams-of-passwords-and-cloud-keys-to-the-open-web ‘BusPatrol’ Put AI Cameras in Tens of Thousands of School Buses. Now They Want to Give Cops Access: https://www.404media.co/buspatrol-put-ai-cameras-in-tens-of-thousands-of-school-buses-now-they-want-to-give-cops-access The FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers: https://www.404media.co/the-fbi-wants-to-buy-nationwide-access-to-license-plate-readers A Bipartisan Amendment Would End Police License Plate Tracking Nationwide: https://www.wired.com/story/a-bipartisan-amendment-would-end-police-license-plate-tracking-nationwide Tip of the Week: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/verify-your-email-archive/  Further Info Privacy Guides (search engines): https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines/  My Proton referral link: https://pr.tn/ref/ZMNG3DNK  My book: https://fdsd.me/book  My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter  Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support  Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons  Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch  Table of Contents Use these timestamps to jump to a particular section of the show. 0:00:07: Intro 0:00:47: News preview 0:02:13: AI financial advisors 0:08:42: Google Search making big changes 0:17:30: You are being recorded 0:25:07: Mayo Clinic ER AI transcripts 0:31:37: Major CISA credentials screwup 0:35:54: School bus surveillance 0:43:37: FBI wants nationwide ALPR access 0:49:04: Congress looks to ban ALPRs 0:53:19: Tip of the Week 1:00:32: Patron podcast preview 1:01:05: Looking ahead