A pedophile man in Texas found out the hard way that Google is required by law to scan emails for suspected child abuse.

John Henry Skillern was arrested for possession and promoting child pornography after Google after generated a report and sent it to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The company detected explicit images of a young girl in an email he was sending to a friend, as police officials said.

Skillern is a registered sex offender, since he is convicted of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy in 1994.

Google had informed its users, including those of popular Gmail service, that they have “no legitimate expectation of privacy” due to the automated scanning of emails to create targeted ads. The company has adopted this practice for over a decade since it released the free email product.

Google is obligated to search for and turn over images of child abuse to law enforcement, thanks to the Federal Law “18 US Code § 2258a”.

According to this law, companies like Google should “as soon as reasonably possible” report any violations that involve child pornography to the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and include contact information for the person involved and “any image of apparent child pornography relating to the incident such report is regarding.”

Google, though, has never publicly admitted that it searches for illegal images. However, according to international media, a company spokesperson confirmed that this happens in some cases in accordance with the law.