Evernote’s new privacy policy means the company can snoop on your notes

Vaughn Highfield December 15, 2016

Evernote, the powerful note-taking app that everyone seems to love, has just changed its privacy policy and – in the process – annoyed a lot of existing users.

Evernote’s new privacy policy means the company can snoop on your notes

The new privacy policy, which comes into force on 23 January, has caused a stir among users because Evernote is now allowing its employees to read your notes. Many users feel this is a violation of their own privacy, but the company has said that users can’t opt out of this service either.

Evernote’s reasoning for its new privacy policy is that it will help improve the machine-learning tools it’s beginning to roll out.

“The latest update to the Privacy Policy allows some Evernote employees to exercise oversight of machine-learning technologies applied to account content,” Evernote said in an announcement of the new privacy policy. “While our computer systems do a pretty good job, sometimes a limited amount of human review is simply unavoidable in order to make sure everything is working exactly as it should.”

Understandably that means that many people are looking to fly the Evernote nest – a PR nightmare for one of the App Store’s highest-rated note-taking apps.

Interestingly, users can opt out of having their emails read by Evernote’s machine-learning technology, along with stopping its employees reading your notes for machine-learning purposes. However, you can’t stop Evernote employees jumping in to read your notes due to reasons already stated in its current privacy policy.

Twitter users may be in a furore over Evernote’s new privacy policy, but it seems that Evernote has already been doing this for a while. Evernote can currently access your notes if the company believes that your account violates its terms of service; if it’s asked to do so by law; if it believes you’re infringing on the rights or personal safety of other users; or it has to in order to investigate a support claim.

Granted, Evernote was not reading the notes of the majority of users, and thanks to its new machine-learning technology, employees are far more likely to jump in on your shopping list. Still, regardless of the new privacy policy, the fact of the matter is that your Evernote notes haven’t been private for a long time.