Does Google own school or student data?

No. Google doesn’t assume ownership of any customer data in Google Apps for Education core services, and it says so in our contracts (under “Intellectual Property”).

We provide powerful, easy-to-use management tools and dashboards to help administrators keep track of their organization's services, usage and data. We only keep your personal information as long as you ask us to keep it. If an education department, school or university decides to stop using Google, we make it easy for them to take their data with them.

Does Google sell school data to third parties?

No. We don’t sell your Google Apps for Education data to third parties, and we do not share personal information placed in our systems with third parties, except in the few exceptional circumstances described in the Google Apps for Education agreement and our Privacy Policy, such as when you ask us to share it or when we are required to do so by law.

Are there ads in Google Apps for Education?

No. There are no ads in the suite of Google Apps for Education core services. Outside of the Google Apps for Education Core Services, additional Google services may show ads, as described in the Google Apps for Education Privacy Notice. For Apps for Education users in Primary/Secondary (K-12) schools, Google does not use any user personal information (or any information associated with a Google Account) to target ads.

How does Google keep data secure?

We are fully committed to the security and privacy of your data and protecting you and your school from attempts to compromise it. Our systems are among the industry’s most secure and we vigorously resist any unlawful attempt to access our customers’ data.

How does Google ensure its tools are reliable?

Our proven infrastructure handles more than 100 billion search queries each month and scales services such as Gmail to hundreds of millions of users with 99.978% availability and no scheduled downtime. We have more than 450 full-time engineers, the world’s foremost experts in security, working to protect your information.

Which third parties have reviewed Google’s security practices?

We connect with independent auditors to review our data protection practices. Ernst & Young, an independent auditor, has verified that our practices and contractual commitments for Google Apps for Education comply with ISO/IEC 27018:2014. Google Apps and our data centers are also SSAE 16 / ISAE 3402 Type II SOC 2-audited and have achieved ISO 27001 certification.

How do you know we’re keeping our word?

We make contractual commitments in our Google Apps for Education agreement and commit to comply with privacy and security standards here. And whether it’s real time dashboards to verify system performance, our ongoing auditing of our processes or sharing the location of our datacenters, we’re committed to providing all our users utmost transparency. It’s your data, and we want you to know what happens with it so that you can always make informed choices.

Has Google signed the Student Privacy Pledge?

Yes. In order to to reaffirm the commitments we've made to schools, Google has signed the Student Privacy Pledge. This pledge, introduced by the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), is intended to reflect our commitment to safeguard student personal information in our services designed for use in schools.

What kind of scanning or indexing of user data is done on Google Apps for Education accounts?

Google Apps for Education services don't collect or use student data for advertising purposes or to create ads profiles.

Gmail for consumers and Google Apps for Education users runs on the same infrastructure, which helps us deliver high performance, reliability, and security to all of our users. However, Google Apps is a separate offering that provides additional security, administrative and archiving controls for education, work and government customers.

Like many email providers, we do scanning in Gmail to keep our customers secure and to improve their product experience. In Gmail for Google Apps for Education, this includes virus and spam protection, spell check, relevant search results and features like Priority Inbox and auto-detection of calendar events. Scanning to provide product features is done on all incoming emails and is 100% automated. We do NOT scan Google Apps for Education emails for advertising purposes.

Are Chromebooks secure for my students?

Yes. Chromebooks are designed with multiple layers of security to keep them safe from viruses and malware without any additional security software. A full 10% of boot time is dedicated to re-verifying that the device has not been tampered with, so every time you power on a Chromebook, your security is checked. And because they can be managed from the web, Chromebooks make it easy for school administrators to configure policies and settings, like enabling safe browsing or blocking malicious sites.

Are Chromebooks compatible with online testing?

Chromebooks are a secure platform for administering student assessments, and when setup properly, these devices meet K-12 education testing standards. With Chromebooks, you can disable students’ access to browse the web during an exam in addition to disabling external storage, screenshots, and the ability to print. Both PARCC (see TestNav) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment consortia have verified that Chromebooks meet hardware and operating system requirements for online student.

How is data used and protected for students on Chromebooks for Education?

Chrome Sync enables Google Account holders to log into any Chromebook or Chrome browser and find all their apps, extensions, bookmarks and frequently visited web pages. For students, this means that they can get to work right away. That's one of the reasons Chromebooks have become so popular in classrooms, especially for schools that can't afford a device for every child. With Chromebooks and Chrome Sync, students can have a personalized experience on any device they share with their classmates.

Personally-identifiable Chrome Sync data in Google Apps for Education accounts is only used to power features in Chrome for that person, for example allowing students to access their own browsing data and settings, securely, across devices. In addition, our systems compile data aggregated from millions of users of Chrome Sync and, after completely removing information about individual users, we use this data to holistically improve the services we provide. For example if data shows that millions of people are visiting a webpage that is broken, that site would be moved lower in the search results. This is not connected to any specific person nor is it used to analyze student behaviors. If they choose to, administrators can disable Chrome Sync and users can choose what information to sync. Google Apps for Education users’ Chrome Sync data is not used to target ads to individual students.