Privacy & Security Information

The mission of Google is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Ensuring teachers and students everywhere have access to technology to learn and work together fits naturally with that mission.

That is why we provide educators with powerful solutions that are affordable and easy to use. We know that trust is earned through protecting teacher and student privacy and providing the best security measures. This webpage explains our privacy and security commitments in plain language.

What are Google Apps for Education core services?

The Google Apps for Education core services are the heart of Google’s educational offering to schools. The core services are Gmail, Calendar, Classroom, Contacts, Drive, Docs, Forms, Groups, Sheets, Sites, Slides, Talk/Hangouts and Vault. These services are provided under the Google Apps for Education agreement.

Schools can use Google Apps for Education (GAFE) core services in compliance with COPPA and FERPA. GAFE core services contain no advertising and do not use student data for advertising purposes.

More than 50 million students, teachers and administrators in almost every country in the world rely on GAFE to learn and work together. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of all our users, including students.

Please note that there are additional services outside of the GAFE core services that GAFE users can access. These services are not governed by the Student Privacy Pledge or the GAFE agreement, so we may use student data in ways we would not for GAFE core services. For example, additional services may serve ads, and Google may use student data in these additional services on an anonymous, aggregate basis to improve our services. 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. Please review the Google Apps for Education Privacy Notice, Google Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy. Learn more about the differences between core services and additional services below.

Learn more about Google Apps for Education core and additional services Read our Google Apps for Education agreement (Google's contract with schools covering Apps for Education core services)

School

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.

Learn how to take data out of Google Read the contract (section on "intellectual property")
Information Sharing

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.

More about Information Sharing
No Ads

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.

Read our Google Apps for Education agreement (Google's contract with schools covering Apps for Education core services) Read our Google Apps for Education Privacy Notice More about Privacy
Keep Data Secure

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.

More about Security
Reliable tools

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.

More about Reliability
Security practive

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.

More about Compliance See our security audit certifications Details of SOC3

Keeping our words

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.

More about Transparency
Student Privacy Pledge

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.

Read the Student Privacy Pledge Student privacy pledge signatory
Security practive

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.

Read our Google Apps for Education Privacy Notice

Can Google Apps for Education be used in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)?

Yes. Google Apps for Education core services comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and our commitment to do so is included in our agreements.

Learn more about FERPA

Given changes around the U.S.-E.U. Safe Harbor Agreement, what options does Google Apps for Education offer for meeting E.U. Data Protection Directive requirements?

Schools can opt into our data processing amendment and model contract clauses. These are an additional means of meeting the adequacy and security requirements of the E.U. Data Protection Directive. Model contract clauses were created specifically by the European Commission to permit the transfer of personal data from Europe.

If you have not already done so, we’d like to remind our Google Apps customers to consider opting-in to the data-processing amendment and model contract clauses.

See opt-in instructions More about model contract clauses

Can Google Apps for Education be used in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA)?

Yes. We contractually require that schools using Google Apps for Education get the parental consent required by COPPA. Our services can be used in compliance with COPPA as long as a school has parental consent.

Read COPPA Read our help center article “Getting consent for Google Apps for Education”

Who uses Chromebooks for Education?

Millions of students use Chromebooks for learning. Privacy and security features helped make Chromebooks the top selling device to US K-12 schools for the past two years. Administrators can manage settings to give students as much or as little access as the school desires.

Although Chromebooks are not a core service, we ensure they comply with the Student Privacy Pledge so that schools can use these in compliance with COPPA and FERPA. Specifically we ensure that no data entered into a Chromebook is used to target advertisements to students. Learn more below.


Chromebooks safety

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.

More about Chromebook security More about Chromebook privacy Read the Chrome privacy whitepaper
Online testing

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.

Configure Chromebooks for testing
Chrome Sync

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.

Learn more about Chrome Sync Learn how to manage Chrome devices See how to encrypt your synced data

Additional services

Schools can control whether students or teachers can use additional Google consumer services with their Google Apps for Education accounts. We are committed to ensuring that K-12 student personal information is not used to target ads in these services, and in some cases we show no ads at all.

Most Additional Services are governed by the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and some services may also have service-specific terms.

We allow school leaders to decide whether to turn these services on or off for certain groups of teachers and students. Every organization and community is different and so we give schools the power to configure tools as they wish to meet the unique needs of students and educators.

Learn more about Google Apps for Education core and additional services Learn more about additional services that can be used with Google Apps for Education accounts, and see any service-specific terms that apply to them Read the Google Terms of Service Read the Google Privacy Policy that governs many additional services

How can families keep their kids safe online?

Along with this page, which provides detail on the services we offer to schools, you can find guidance for keeping your kids safe online outside of school. We worked with many partners to create the Google Family Safety Center.

Visit the Google Family Safety Center