Evernote is testing out machine learning algorithms on all the reams of content it has accumulated over the past eight years. But when it announced this move with a new privacy policy that goes into effect January 24, 2017, the company also pointed out something that many users hadn't realized: Evernote staffers will sometimes look at the content of your notes.

There are actually a number of perfectly good reasons why Evernote employees might need to read note content, and they are explained clearly in Evernote's Privacy Policy. These include complying with a lawful court order, investigating whether there has been a violation of the Terms of Service, and "protect[ing] against potential spam, malware or other security concerns."

What concerned some users, including journalist and former BuzzFeed News Editor Stacy-Marie Ishmael, is a vaguely worded section of the Privacy Policy stating that employees will look at your notes "for troubleshooting purposes or to maintain and improve the Service." She noted on Twitter that this clause is "so broad as to be all inclusive" and that it's particularly worrying for a "minority journalist in 2016." Given the hostile stance President-elect Donald Trump and some of his supporters have shown toward journalists, it's possible that journalists who want to preserve the anonymity of sources will have to stop using services like Evernote.

Of course, Evernote employees might have to read notes to deal with bugs and abuse, but aren't those problems already covered by the "protect against potential spam, malware or other security concerns" language? It's unclear why Evernote chose to add the capacious "troubleshooting" clause to its policy, given how broadly it could be interpreted.

Anthropologist Michael Oman-Regan warned followers on Twitter that they need to be aware of the policy, adding, "If you're using Evernote for research with human subjects, it may be necessary to export your data and leave." That's because researchers must be able to guarantee the privacy of human subjects in experiments. Evernote no longer allows any researcher to make that guarantee.

For its part, Evernote has assured users that they can opt out of the machine learning features, so they're guaranteed that no algorithms will look at their notes. If users with sensitive data want to benefit from machine learning, they also have the option to encrypt private notes and make them off-limits to algorithms. As long as you choose a good password, it should be off-limits to humans too.

It's worth noting that other companies have similar disclosures in their privacy policies, though with less alarming wording than Evernote's. In its privacy policy, Google states that its employees do have access to personal information, with this caveat: "We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations." So Google employees can read your mail, your docs, and anything else. Facebook explains in its privacy policy that it shares personal data with employees of Facebook and Facebook companies like Whatsapp.

Evernote did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its new policy.