When the Google for Education team designs products, we prioritize the security and privacy needs of our users. This means keeping school data safer with built-in security features that provide automated protection, visibility and compliance control, to ensure a private, safe and secure learning environment. Our goal is to support and protect the entire educational community, and in particular teachers and students, so that they can focus on what matters most: teaching and learning.
Everything we build is guided by three important principles:
- Secure by default: Protecting your privacy starts with the world’s most advanced security. Even before you set up security controls for your school’s digital environment specific to your needs, our built-in security automatically protects you from threats, like ransomware.
- Private by Design: We maintain responsible data practices designed to respect your privacy. Our products can be used in accordance with the most rigorous data privacy standards, including FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR. Google does not use data from Google Workspace for Education core services for advertising purposes and users’ personal information is never sold.
- You are in control: You own your data in Core Workspace Services, which means you retain all intellectual property rights to your customers’ data and control who can download it and when. You can receive real-time alerts so you can act immediately if an incident occurs and customize the security dashboard to get reports on your security status at any time.
Introducing new features to provide more visibility and control
To help administrators and teachers create safe digital learning environments, we are adding additional features to provide more visibility and control. We are also updating our privacy notice to make it easier for teachers, parents, and students to understand what information we collect and why we collect it. we collect. There are no changes to the way your information is processed. Rather, we have improved the way we describe our privacy practices and controls with a simpler structure and clearer language.
Adapt access based on age
We’re launching a new age-based access settings to make it easier for administrators to tailor experiences to their needs. users by age when using Google services such as YouTube, Photos and Maps. Starting today, all administrators at primary and secondary institutions must indicate which of their users, such as faculty and staff, are 18 years or older using organizational units or groups in the Admin Console. After September 1, 2021, students under the age of 18 will see changes to their experience on Google products.
For example, after September 1, students designated as under 18 in K-12 domains can view teacher-assigned YouTube content, but will not be able to post videos, comment, or go live using their Google account. from his school. Administrators should ensure that Google Takeout is enabled so that end users can download their data, such as previously uploaded videos, using Google Takeout.
If administrators do not make a selection by September 1, users in primary and secondary institutions will default to the under-18 experience, while users in higher education institutions will default to the 18 experience. years or more. These age-based settings are not locked and administrators can always adjust them based on the age of their users.
New default experiences for Chrome users in K-12 institutions
Many schools already have policies in place for SafeSearch, SafeSites, Guest Mode, and Incognito Mode, and we are updating their defaults to ensure a safer web browsing experience for K-12 institutions. Now, SafeSearch and SafeSites will be enabled by default, and Guest Mode and Incognito Mode will be disabled by default. Administrators can still change each of these policies in Chrome OS for individual organizational units, for example allowing the use of guest mode for users in their domain.
The Google for Education team is committed to creating tools and services that are secure by default and private by design, while giving you complete control over your environment.
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