Google Checks sunsets in September 2026, and it deletes your compliance evidence on the way out

Google is discontinuing Checks, its privacy compliance platform for app and AI developers, with a final sunset at the end of September 2026 ^[1][2]. Accounts and all associated data will be deleted automatically once the service shuts down, which turns a routine deprecation into an evidence-retention problem for anyone who used Checks to document privacy posture or AI safety testing ^[8].

The timeline, as reported by a dev.to account of the customer email, is short. Google sent a message titled "Deprecation of the Checks product" to every active Checks account on August 19, 2026, and the deprecation period officially began on August 17 ^[4][5]. That leaves roughly six weeks to migrate and secure data ^[3], about 44 days from the start of the wind-down to the end of the month ^[18]. New user registrations and app uploads are already disabled, and the email warns that feature access may be limited as the shutdown proceeds ^[6][7]. The practical reading: the ability to generate a fresh report may degrade before the date on the calendar arrives, so export order matters more than export deadline.

There is also a discovery problem. At the time of the dev.to write-up, the public Checks website and documentation were still online with no deprecation banner, so customers were learning about the shutdown only from the email ^[10]. If your compliance owner is not the address on the account, they may not know yet.

What is going away is three product lines: App Compliance, with automated privacy checks and SDK data-flow analysis for Android and iOS apps ^[13]; Code Compliance, which scanned source code and continuous integration pipelines for privacy issues before release ^[14]; and AI Safety, testing and evaluation tooling for generative AI features aimed at teams that needed evidence their models stayed inside policy boundaries ^[15]. The stated mission was to simplify privacy compliance and reduce risk for digital product creators ^[16]. The dev.to author argues the AI safety line is the real loss, because Checks was one of the more accessible ways for a mid-sized team to obtain structured AI safety evaluations without standing up an internal red-teaming practice ^[17].

Google's stated reason is that "as we enter the agentic era" developers approach compliance differently, and that with platforms such as the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform they can build bespoke compliance tools and customised agents suited to their own organisation ^[19]. That is an argument for unbundling, not for compliance mattering less. The dev.to author notes the asymmetry: a five-person startup that used Checks precisely because it lacked security engineers now faces a build-it-yourself path with no off-the-shelf replacement of similar scope, and consolidation into platforms squeezes small teams hardest ^[20].

Two mechanical steps. Pull every report, scan history, and evaluation artefact you may need to show a regulator or an enterprise customer later, because after sunset the account and its contents are gone ^[8]. If you would rather not wait, Google accepts immediate deletion requests by email to [email protected] with the Checks account number included ^[9].

Worth noting the lifespan: Checks was incubated in Area 120, joined Google in May 2023, and reached general availability at Google I/O in May 2024 ^[11][12], roughly 28 months of general availability before the shutdown date ^[21].

Watch whether the public documentation ever carries a deprecation notice ^[10], and whether Google publishes any export or migration guidance beyond the deletion address ^[9]. If it does not, treat any vendor holding your compliance evidence as a single point of failure and keep your own copy.