The Silent Guardian
Google Chrome includes a built-in “Safety Check” feature designed to protect your digital identity. If you allow Chrome to save your passwords (using the integrated password manager), the browser will periodically take cryptographic hashes of your saved passwords and compare them against massive, known databases of passwords leaked in major corporate data breaches. If it finds a match, Chrome will automatically flag the password and generate a prominent warning prompting you to change it immediately. While this is an excellent security feature, some users find the constant background scanning intrusive or simply prefer to use dedicated, third-party password managers like 1Password or Bitwarden.
Disabling Password Scanning
To stop Google Chrome from automatically checking your saved credentials against compromised password lists, you must disable the specific security toggle within the Autofill settings.
Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the Chrome browser and select Settings. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Autofill and passwords (or simply “Passwords” depending on your version). Click on Google Password Manager, and then click on the Settings gear icon on the left sidebar of the new window. Look for the toggle switch labelled Check passwords (the description will mention notifying you if passwords are found in a data breach). Click this toggle switch to turn it Off. Chrome will no longer scan your saved passwords, leaving you responsible for monitoring your own security breaches.