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Google’s chief privacy officer is leaving the company after 13 years, but the company has no plans to appoint a replacement.
A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that Enright would remain with the company through the fall, and a source told Forbes that Enright’s departure announcement came as a “shock” to employees.
“After more than 13 years at Google, I’m looking for a change and will be transitioning this fall to take everything I’ve learned and try something new,” Enright said in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. “I’m incredibly proud of the team we’ve built and the work we’ve done to keep billions of people safe and controlled around the world.”
Enright leads the Global Privacy team, responsible for developing and implementing privacy and data policies across Google’s products and services, and testified on consumer data privacy in 2018. U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and TransportationWhile acknowledging Google’s past mistakes, he defended the company’s privacy policy.
Google’s competition chief Matthew Bye is leaving the company after 15 years with the company.
Google confirmed the departures in a statement to Business Insider. No replacements for Bye or Enright have been announced. Instead, a Google spokesperson told Forbes that the company is reorganizing its policy and privacy operations into multiple teams.
“We regularly evolve our legal, regulatory and compliance efforts as we launch and operate innovative services that meet a growing number of overlapping obligations and expectations,” a Google spokesperson told BI in a statement. “This change will increase the number of people working on regulatory compliance across the company.”
Enright’s resignation comes amid scrutiny of Google’s privacy policies.
In December, Google settled a lawsuit alleging that it secretly collected data from Chrome users whose browsing activity was thought to be private — a practice Google says was used in Incognito mode.
As part of the settlement, Google agreed to delete billions of records of user data.
404 Media on Monday published leaked copies of an internal Google database that exposed thousands of privacy-related incidents between 2013 and 2018, including one in which Google’s voice service recorded an estimated 1,000 children’s audio for about an hour.
A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that all incidents have been investigated and resolved, and all personal information has been removed.
A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that the leaked news was unrelated to Enright and Bye’s announcements of their departures.
Google is also trying to strengthen user privacy through its efforts to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser.
Enright and Bye did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.