Google Protects Your Data With Thermal Cameras, Drive Crushers, an Ominous Data Server Promo Video

When I met a member of Google’s Chrome OS team at a party last year, she held forth on the virtues of keeping everything on the cloud: because we will be able to access our data from any computer, we’ll never have to worry about damaging or losing our computers again. “It’s all on the cloud,” we’ll confidently say someday, as we nonchalantly toss our laptops in the trash after a good Gmail filter-building session.

But I wondered aloud: how can we be confident that Google’s servers themselves wouldn’t fail? Given my track record, I probably shouldn’t be trusted with my own computer, but what makes Google so trustworthy? As Google beckons us to store more and more of our precious stuff on its servers – and as last week’s Amazon failure reminded lots of us – the question becomes increasingly poignant, and not just for Skynet conspiracy-mongers: what happens to our Gmail when there’s, say, a fire?

The response got blank stares. The Google executive smiled and told me not to worry.

And here’s why, says a video that Google just released, showing one of its data centers in South Carolina. There are no public visits, and only a few Google employees have access; those that do have to carry lenticular ID cards and get eye-scanned before they’re allowed to enter. Aside from keeping copies of everything in multiple data centers and in files that are not human readable on custom-built Linux servers, the data center also relies on security gates, fire suppression equipment, machines that crush and shred hard drives when they die, and a patrol team (made up, it seems, of only black people?) that relies on thermal cameras and “video analytics,” which can spot abnormalities and, presumably, neutralize them instantly with lasers. Remember that scene in Mission: Impossible when Ving Rhames describes to Tom Cruise how secure that CIA vault is? This is the Google version.

There’s only the briefest glimpse of the data center itself, around 4 minutes in, showing tape libraries. And not to worry: Google’s data centers exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s strictest sustainability measures. (It doesn’t hurt that Google is making its own energy too.)

In case you’re getting any ideas, Google would also like to remind you that they also maintain a “relationship with local law enforcement,” and, says the narrator as the camera creepily pans out to an image of (Google) Earth, additional security measures that the company does not disclose. (Revealing shots of Eric Schmidt? Anti-asteroid missiles?) In other words, don’t try to get in here. And, please, don’t ask such silly questions.

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