Billions rely on Google Drive. Documents pile up there. Contracts. Financial records. Employee files. Yet fresh research and incidents show the service falls short when real stakes appear. Convenience draws users in. The gaps push sensitive material out. A MakeUseOf investigation published May 31, 2026 lays out the core problem. Google encrypts files in transit with TLS and at rest with AES-128. Sounds solid. The catch comes next. Google controls the encryption keys. No end-to-end protection exists by default. The company can access content. Automated systems scan for policy violations. Legal orders can compel disclosure. And integration with Gemini AI widens the surface further. “Google holds the encryption keys and can access the files in your Drive whenever it needs to,” the article states. True end-to-end encryption keeps keys on the user’s device alone. Google’s model does not. That distinction changes everything for privacy-focused teams. Recent flaws make the picture sharper.…