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What are we changing?

Today we are announcing he beta of Google Workspace client-side encryption, which will be available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and Google Workspace Education Plus customers. This release will be available for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and will support all file types in Drive, including Office documents, PDFs, and more. Google has committed to a development roadmap to enable client-side encryption across Google Workspace services, including Gmail, Meet, and Calendar. We will be adding support for Google Meet in the fall. Check the Google Workspace Updates blog to see when it will be available. We will begin rolling out the beta in the coming weeks, but eligible customers can now submit a request to use it..

Who is affected by this change?

Administrators.

Why is this important?

Google Workspace already adopts the latest cryptographic standards to encrypt all data at rest and in transit between our facilities. However, with client encryption, we’re taking this a step further by giving customers direct control of the encryption keys and the identity provider used to access those keys. This can strengthen the confidentiality of your data, while helping you address a wide range of data sovereignty and compliance needs. By using client encryption, customer data is indecipherable to Google. Customers can create a fundamentally stronger privacy posture, whether to comply with regulations like ITAR and CJIS or simply to better protect the privacy of their sensitive data. Please see the announcement blog post for
more information about the beta and our plans for Google Workspace client encryption.

Additional details

To enable client-side encryption, you’ll need to choose an access key service partner:
Flowcrypt, Futurex, Thales or Virtru. Each of these partners has built tools to Google’s specifications and offers key management and access control capabilities. The partner you choose will have the key to decrypt your encrypted Google Workspace files, and Google will not be able to access or decrypt them without that key. If you’d prefer to build or integrate your own internal key services, please note that later this year we’ll be publishing access key service API specifications that can be used with client-side encryption.

How to get started?

Rollout cadence

  • We’ll begin rolling out the beta in the coming weeks, but eligible customers can now submit a request to use it. You’ll receive more details via email weeks after signing up using the form.

Availability

  • Available to Enterprise Plus and Education Plus customers.
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers.

Resources

This original article was published.
publicado el 14 de junio.