Google Ads Data Manager stops requiring hashed customer data November 16

Google is telling advertisers that Google Ads Data Manager will no longer require customer data to be hashed with SHA-256 from November 16, 2026, and will instead accept encrypted customer data by default, decrypting and matching it inside a hardware-isolated trusted execution environment. The notice reached the public today, when Anthony Higman, founder and CEO of ADSQUIRE, posted a copy of the undated email on LinkedIn.

In Short

When businesses send Google their customer lists for advertising, they have had to scramble each email address and phone number first in a fixed way called hashing. From November 16, Google says Data Manager will take the lists locked with encryption instead, unlock them inside a sealed computer, tidy the formatting itself and then look for matching Google accounts. The change affects anyone uploading customer lists or offline sales to Google Ads, and it moves the job of formatting the data, and the trust that the data stays private, from the…