Privacy and security FAQ
Providing your education community with a safe digital learning environment is essential to Google for Education, so you can teach and learn knowing your community’s data is private and secure.
Private and secure
We build and operate our own servers and services as a full-stack AI solution, providing end-to-end privacy, security, reliability, and rapid innovation. We also make it easy for admins to manage their digital security, with centralized controls, default protections, and responsibly built AI tools.
Ad-free
Google Workspace for Education Core Services (like Gmail, Google Calendar, Classroom, the Gemini app, NotebookLM, and more) have no ads, and student information in Core Services is never used to create profiles for ad targeting, sold to third parties, or used to train our AI models.
Supports compliance
Our services support your organization’s compliance with demanding privacy and security requirements. We also regularly undergo independent verification – achieving certifications, attestations, and audit reports to help support your compliance.
Transparent
Google is committed to transparency about the collection of your data – our Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice explains what data we do collect, why we collect it, and how you can manage it.
Content you can trust
Age-based content, safer browsing settings, training and curriculum resources, plus integrated apps – found easily through the Google for Education App Hub – help foster a safer, high-quality digital educational experience.
Private and secure
We build and operate our own servers and services as a full-stack AI solution, providing end-to-end privacy, security, reliability, and rapid innovation. We also make it easy for admins to manage their digital security, with centralized controls, default protections, and responsibly built AI tools.
Ad-free
Google Workspace for Education Core Services (like Gmail, Google Calendar, Classroom, the Gemini app, NotebookLM, and more) have no ads, and student information in Core Services is never used to create profiles for ad targeting, sold to third parties, or used to train our AI models.
Supports compliance
Our services support your organization’s compliance with demanding privacy and security requirements. We also regularly undergo independent verification – achieving certifications, attestations, and audit reports to help support your compliance.
Transparent
Google is committed to transparency about the collection of your data – our Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice explains what data we do collect, why we collect it, and how you can manage it.
Content you can trust
Age-based content, safer browsing settings, training and curriculum resources, plus integrated apps – found easily through the Google for Education App Hub – help foster a safer, high-quality digital educational experience.
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Find answers to common questions about how Google protects privacy and keeps data safe.
Education leaders
Security
Learn how Google protects the world’s data with industry-leading security.
With Google, your institution’s data is protected by one of the world’s most advanced, secure, and reliable cloud infrastructures. Our multifaceted digital protection is built upon six progressive layers to deliver defense-in-depth, 24/7/365. Our cloud-native security stack equips education organizations with industry-leading data encryption, both at rest and in transit, along with enterprise-grade identity and access management, custom hardware running on a hardened operating system, up-to-the-second backups, and more. Because Google controls the entire hardware and software stack, we can rapidly respond to a wide range of security threats. Our secure-by-design foundation continuously monitors for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and threats, providing real-time visibility and alerts. This modern and AI-optimized security operations platform helps keep your institution’s data private, safe, and secure, while maintaining digital sovereignty.
- Read and share our Safer learning with Google for Education policy one-pager for answers to your school community’s top security and privacy questions
- Read our K-12 Cybersecurity Guidebook for best practices on protecting your school against threats
- More about safer learning with Google for Education
- More about security
- Read our report on Google infrastructure security design
- Discover how our data centers are designed with six layers of physical security
- Discover how Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped meets stringent sovereignty and regulatory requirements
- Introducing Google Unified Security – a full-stack, intelligent security solution
Our industry-leading global network is built with multilayered, full-stack security that can handle even extreme shifts in demand. From custom-designed data centers to private undersea cables that transfer data between continents, we operate one of the world’s most secure and reliable cloud infrastructures. Our infrastructure handles more than 100 billion search queries each month and scales services such as Gmail to hundreds of millions of users with guaranteed 99.9% availability and no scheduled downtime. It’s continuously monitored to protect your data and keep it available. And in the event of a disruption, platform services can be automatically and instantly shifted from one facility to another so that they can continue without interruption.
Providing a safer way to learn is at the foundation of all Google Workspace for Education products and services, and every single one adheres to the highest educational standards of privacy and compliance. Google Workspace for Education Core Services are free of ads, and protected against spam and cyberthreats. Google Workspace is one of the world’s most secure cloud-based productivity suites.
We foster a safer age-based experience for students by offering advanced admin controls and policies so schools can effectively manage content and applications accessed with a Google Workspace for Education account. Our tools enable admins to limit service and content access for younger users and provide SafeSearch and Safe Sites settings by default. For all users, Gmail blocks more than 99.9% of spam, phishing attempts, and malware, powered by Google’s AI.
Built-in automated protections provide 24/7 monitoring, encryption, and security alerts. An easy-to-use dashboard puts all of your settings and analytics reports in one place, giving you full visibility and control of your data and security policies. Premium upgrades provide additional proactive security capabilities that meet the needs of your individual institution.
Yes. Data encryption by default is an important piece of the Google Workspace for Education security strategy, and encryption helps to protect your emails, chats, video meetings, files, and other data. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit, ensuring that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Google’s servers, but also as they move between Google’s data centers.
Your data is logically separated as if it were on its own server. Advanced security protections are in place to help prevent unauthorized parties from accessing your data. In fact, all user accounts are protected by this secure architecture that ensures that one user cannot see another user’s data. This is similar to how customer data is segmented in other shared infrastructures, such as online banking applications. Even more so, admins can set up additional data controls via Google Admin console.
Google Workspace for Education offers three editions to give admins a choice for the solution that best suits the needs of their institution.
Providing secure digital learning environments is foundational to Google for Education. The following features are offered within each edition of Google Workspace for Education:
- Centralize control with Admin console, your unified tool for privacy, security, data, and device management
- Alert center: Provides a complete view into security with notifications, alerts, and actions
- Identity and access management: Manage access to tools with two-factor authentication, single sign-on, and password management
- Utilize the Chromebook power button as a security key with your Google sign-in
- Implement secure passwordless authentication with passkeys
- Data loss protection (DLP): Helps prevent the loss or theft of data in Gmail and Drive by allowing you to set your own automated rules and policies
- Vault: Support your unique data retention and eDiscovery requirements by retaining, searching, and exporting data
- Block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing attempts, and malware in Gmail
Build on your secure foundation with advanced security capabilities that enable a more proactive approach to your organization’s security. With Google Workspace for Education Standard and Google Workspace for Education Plus, get all the security offerings above, and:
- Proactive prevention: Tighten your security across your domain with security health monitoring and best practices recommendations
- Advanced detection: Provides analytics and insights through your security center dashboard to help you address security risks
- Quick remediation: Remediate malware, phishing, spam, and other cyberattacks by quickly identifying issues and taking action from a central console
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Advanced controls: Endpoint management to centrally deploy and manage devices, defining geographic data regions to limit or distribute data where required for compliance best practices, and Context-Aware Access and application licensing and management controls
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Client-side encryption (CSE): Keep your organization’s data private with end-to-end encryption that Google servers and third parties can’t decrypt, giving your organization greater control over access to its data
All Google Workspace for Education editions offer admins full flexibility and control to change default settings for entire education organizations, classes, or individuals. By default, students under 18 have access to content that is deliberately limited to help ensure a safer and protected online experience.
Yes. There have been zero successful ransomware attacks on Chromebooks as of 2025. And that’s because security is built in at every step – from our data centers to computer hardware, mobile devices, and user authentication.
Chromebooks are designed with multiple layers of security to keep them safe from viruses and malware without any additional security software. Every time you power on a Chromebook, your security is checked. And because they can be managed centrally, Chromebooks make it easy for school IT administrators to configure policies and settings, like enabling safe browsing or blocking malicious sites. Chromebooks have the following built in:
- Automatic updates: Help ensure your malware protection is always up to date. We provide 10 years of automatic updates, more than any other operating system today.
- Verified boot: Allows Chromebooks to self-check for malware and auto-repair if corrupted.
- Sandboxing: Helps prevent the spread of viruses by making sure each webpage and application runs in its own walled environment.
- 256-bit data encryption: All devices can leverage 256-bit data encryption, which helps to protect Chromebooks and maintain resistance to attacks.
- Chrome sync: Allows students to sign in to any Chromebook or Chrome browser to access all their apps, settings, and preferences securely.
- Data security controls: Helps IT admins monitor, secure, and manage data on their network.
- ChromeOS data controls: Set rules to protect against data leakage based on the data source, destination, and user.
Chromebooks are a secure platform for administering student assessments. 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 Consortium have verified that Chromebooks meet hardware and operating system requirements for online students.
With Chrome Education Upgrade, school IT administrators can manage settings to give students as much or as little access as the school desires, to provide yet another layer of data security and centralized management capabilities, including:
- Advanced security: Prevent unauthorized access to school data with advanced security features that allow IT to easily disable the device. Devices can also be set as ephemeral, which removes user data at the end of a session, or set up with a persistent enrollment to prevent unrestricted access.
- 24/7 support: Get the added benefit of ChromeOS troubleshooting assistance with 24/7 admin support. Call Google at any time if an issue comes up, at no additional cost.
- Simplified deployment: Provides IT admins with access to device policies and fleet oversight capabilities, both school-issued and student-owned, all from the easy-to-use, cloud-based Google Admin console.
- Powerful access controls: Manage access to platforms and school data – putting IT in control of who can access. Managed guest sessions and kiosk mode enable shared device use cases; for example, to showcase student work or in a library setting.
To ensure we’re bringing AI to students responsibly, we consulted with child safety and development experts like the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), partnered with learning science experts, tested with youth advisory panels, and continue to work closely with educators around the world. Additionally, we’ve built advanced admin controls and user safeguards across Google for Education AI-powered tools.
- The Gemini app: Gemini is available to students 13+ (or the applicable age in your country) with enterprise-grade data protection while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts, and it will soon be available to students of all ages in every language and country where they can access Gemini.
- Chrome browser and Chromebooks: Gen AI features are available to educators and students 18 years and older. These features are disabled by default for users under 18 with admin controls in Google Admin console.
- Gemini for Workspace: Available to educators and students 18 years and older with a Gemini Education license.
Gemini is a Core Service covered under your Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service. When using your Google Workspace for Education account with Gemini, your chats are not reviewed by human reviewers or otherwise used to improve generative AI models.
Google is committed to providing a safe and age-appropriate experience for even the youngest learners. The youth experience in the Gemini app has strict policies and guardrails to help prevent users under 18 from getting inappropriate responses. Gemini also provides sources and citations in results, a feature to double-check responses using Google Search. These measures help ensure that Gemini provides a secure and age-appropriate environment for younger users, empowering them to explore AI responsibly. Here are some key features and policies in place:
- School-controlled access: Admins can easily manage who has access to the Gemini app in the Admin console.
- Enhanced content filtering: Gemini has implemented strict content policies and default protections to filter out age-inappropriate content, ensuring a safer online environment. Before allowing student access to Gemini, Google trained the model to recognize content that is inappropriate for younger users, such as content related to illegal or age-gated substances, and implemented safety features to help prevent it from appearing in responses.
- Onboarding and education: To help them use Gemini responsibly, users under 18 receive a special onboarding experience, including AI literacy resources developed in collaboration with younger users and experts. These resources, shared with all users under 18 years old, include a video, endorsed by ConnectSafely and the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI).
- Automatic double-check: The first time a user asks a fact-based question, Gemini automatically runs a double-check response feature, which helps evaluate whether there’s content across the web to substantiate Gemini’s response.
- Helpful tooltips: Gemini includes tooltips – short, helpful messages that encourage critical thinking and fact-checking. These tooltips appear when students hover their cursor over certain elements, reminding them to use features like double-check and fact-checking.
- Privacy protections: All users signed in to their Google Workspace for Education account receive enterprise-grade data protection in Gemini, free of charge. This means your data isn’t used or reviewed by anyone to improve AI models.
Our industry-leading security, third-party audits and certifications, documentation, and contract commitments help support your compliance. We make contractual commitments in our Cloud Data Processing Addendum and Google Workspace for Education Agreement and provide transparency around data processing in our Google Cloud Privacy Notice. And whether it’s real-time dashboards to verify system performance, our ongoing auditing of our processes, or sharing the location of our data centers, 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.
Privacy
We are committed to treating your data responsibly and protecting your privacy with strict protocols and innovative privacy technologies.
The Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice details what information Google services collect when used with Google Workspace for Education accounts. For example, collecting information like a user’s email address enables us to send an email to that user to grant access to Classroom.
No. There are no ads in the suite of Google Workspace for Education Core Services. Outside of the Google Workspace for Education Core Services, additional Google services may show ads, as described in the Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice. For Google Workspace users in primary and secondary (K-12) schools, Google does not use any user’s personal information (or any information associated with a Google Account) or sell to third parties to target ads.
No. Education organizations own their customer data, retain full rights over their intellectual property, and can set rules for when people in their community can download data. Google doesn’t assume ownership of any customer data in Google Workspace for Education Core Services, as mentioned in our contracts (under “Intellectual Property”).
No. We never sell education organization or student data. At Google, we are committed to protecting your data. That’s why it’s our strict policy to never sell personal information to anyone, including for ads purposes.
Google Additional Services and Products are other Google services that may be used with a Google Workspace Google Account, for example, YouTube, and Google Earth. Most Additional Services are governed by the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and some services may also have service-specific terms.
School admins are required to obtain parental consent for the use of Additional Google Services for users under the age of 18. For users designated as under 18 with access to Additional Google Services, Google provides a more age-appropriate experience by restricting access to certain content, features, or services. Additional services may show ads, however personal information (or any information associated with the account) from primary and secondary (K-12) schools’ users will not be used to target ads.
Every organization and community is different, and so we give them the power to configure tools as they wish to meet the unique needs of students and educators. Users designated as under 18 will have a more age-appropriate experience across Google Additional Services like YouTube, Maps, and Play, and may have restricted access to some Additional Services not intended for children. Most Additional Services are governed by the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and some services may also have service-specific terms.
Education organizations can turn these services on or off for certain groups of teachers and students. When a school obtains parental consent, Additional Services can be used by Google Workspace for Education users. Learn how to do so in this tutorial video.
The Google Privacy Policy describes how Google services generally use information in the Additional Services, including for Google Workspace for Education users. The Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice also describes the data collected in the Additional Services and the purposes for which they are used.
For Google Workspace for Education users in primary and secondary (K-12) schools, Google does not use any user personal information (or any information associated with a Google Workspace for Education account) to target ads, whether in Core Services or other Google services accessed while using a Google Workspace for Education account.
It is the education organization’s responsibility to manage students’ Workspace accounts, including suspending access, retaining data according to government regulations, and deleting the account when appropriate. Google commits to deleting customer data associated with an end user account within 180 days from the customer deleting the account.
Students have the option to export their data under a Google Workspace for Education account if their administrator allows.
Students also have the option to use Content transfer as a simple way to take their work with them when they graduate or move schools. Admins can easily start the process by notifying students to select which accounts, files, and other data they want to migrate from their institution-provided account to any consumer account they choose.
It is Google’s policy that the customer, as the data owner, is primarily responsible for responding to law enforcement data requests, and we direct the government to request such data directly from the customer. However, Google may receive direct requests from governments and courts around the world about how a person has used the company’s services. We carefully review each request to make sure it satisfies applicable laws. If a request asks for too much information, we try to narrow it, and in some cases we object to producing any information at all.
Respect for the privacy and security of data you store with Google remains our priority as we comply with these legal requests. Detailed information about data requests and Google’s response to them is available in our Transparency Report.
Google is committed to building products that help protect student and teacher privacy and provide best-in-class security for your institution. On Chromebooks, users can turn on sending usage statistics and crash reporting to Google to help improve our services.
Chrome sync enables Google Account holders to sign in to any Chromebook or Chrome browser and access all their apps, extensions, bookmarks, and frequently visited webpages. With Chromebooks and Chrome sync, students can have a personalized experience on any device they share with their classmates, while keeping their data secure. Chrome sync data in Google Workspace for Education accounts is only used to provide sync services for users, such as syncing browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, and other settings, securely, across devices. If they choose to, administrators can disable Chrome sync entirely, and users can choose what information to sync.
Chrome sync is a Core Service covered under your Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service. These services are available for users by default, and admins always have the option to turn them off.
Compliance
We’re here to help you maintain compliance with various standards.
Yes. Google Workspace for Education complies with rigorous privacy and security educational standards.
We undergo several independent third-party audits on a regular basis. Google’s certifications, audits, and assessments include:
- ISO/IEC 27001
- ISO/IEC 27017
- ISO/IEC 27018
- SOC 2 and SOC 3
- FedRAMP (US Government)
- BSI (Germany)
- MTCS (Singapore)
- PCI DSS
- FISC (Japan)
- Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) (Spain)
Google Workspace for Education can be used to help meet your compliance and reporting requirements with:
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [EU]
- Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) [US]
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) [US]
- South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) [SA]
- HIPAA [US]
Google Workspace for Education Core Services support compliance with FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR.
Learn more in our FERPA compliance center, COPPA webpage, GDPR webpage, and our Help Center article titled “Communicating with Parents and Guardians about Google Workspace for Education”.
We regularly instruct independent auditors to review our data protection practices. An independent third-party auditor has verified that our practices and contractual commitments for Google Workspace for Education comply with ISO/IEC 27018 and ISO/IEC 27001, and are audited against SSAE 18 / ISAE 3402 Type II. For our full compliance offerings, see our compliance resource center.
Additional resources
Help your educational community learn and apply digital safety best practices.
We appreciate the role educators can play in helping students develop healthy, positive relationships with technology. To help educators guide their students through a range of important technology issues, we developed the Digital Citizenship and Safety Course. Google also partners with teachers to help students learn by using kid-friendly content, setting boundaries, and building a healthy relationship with technology, like educating them about internet safety with Be Internet Awesome.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live, work, and interact with technology. However, using AI responsibly requires thoughtful choices and ethical awareness. Here are some tips for teaching students how to get the most out of generative AI and use it responsibly:
1. Remember AI is technology, not human. AI is a machine learning model. It can’t think for itself, or feel emotions – it’s just great at picking up patterns, known as training. Since AI is not a human, it can’t and shouldn’t make decisions for you or replace important people in your life.
2. Use AI to empower, not replace, your talents. AI can help you kickstart the creative process, but it’s not there to do the work for you – that’s your role as the creator. For example, you might use AI to help brainstorm ideas for the introduction for your video before writing your script.
3. Critically evaluate responses. Since gen AI is a work in progress, it can make mistakes – and may even make things up, something known as hallucination. Always check information that’s presented as fact. When in doubt, double-check it with Google Search.
4. If something feels off, investigate further. Like every useful technology, there may be people who try to use it to deceive others. For example, they may generate misinformation or fake media, like photos and videos that seem real. Look at the content’s sources and if something seems unusual, take caution.
5. Be mindful of private information. Don’t enter personally identifiable information, such as your social security number, into gen AI tools. While Gemini has advanced safeguards in place for students using their Google Workspace for Education accounts, other tools may use data from your inputs. When in doubt, consider if you would share this information publicly.
Google is committed to providing education communities with a safer digital learning environment. We’ve compiled even more resources to show how we protect users.
- Read our Safer learning policy one-pager for answers to your education community’s top security and privacy questions
- Read our K-12 Cybersecurity Guidebook for best practices on protecting your school from threats using Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education
- Visit the Trusted Infrastructure Help Center
- Visit the Google Cloud compliance resource center
- Read our Google Workspace for Education Agreement (Google’s contract with education organizations covering Google Workspace Core Services)
- Read our Google Workspace for Education data protection implementation guide
- Visit the DPIA Resource Center
Guardians
Google for Education
Discover commonly asked questions about how Google helps protect your child’s privacy and security.
With Google, data is protected by one of the world’s most secure and reliable cloud infrastructures. Our cloud-based systems mean education organizations have the newest software, the latest security updates, up-to-the-second backups of all data, and Google-grade 24/7 cyber protection. This built-in security automatically detects and prevents online threats, so you can be confident your private information is safe.
In fact, your organization’s data gets the same industry-leading, multilayer safeguards that Google uses for our own operations. Google encrypts data at rest and in transit by default and our data centers are optimized for security and performance. Google’s security engineers, including some of the world’s foremost experts, work around the clock to spot threats early and respond quickly.
Google does not own customer data.
Education organizations own and control all student work and retain full rights over its intellectual property in customer data. Personal information collected when students use Google Workspace for Education or a Chromebook is never sold to third parties. Google uses this information to provide our services to education organization users. For example, collecting information like a user’s email address enables us to send an email to that user to grant access to Google Classroom.
Google Workspace for Education is committed to compliance, providing robust privacy and security protections built into our services to meet rigorous global education requirements. Google Workspace for Education can be used in compliance with FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR, and we’re also audited by independent, third-party organizations.
Under the Cloud Data Processing Addendum, Google acts as a processor of the Customer Personal Data that is submitted, stored, sent, or received by your child’s school via Google Workspace for Education services, and we process such data on the school’s behalf and under their instructions.
Google Workspace for Education Core Services include Google Classroom, Assignments, Forms, Google Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Sites, Vids, Drive, Chat, Contacts, Groups, Vault, Chrome sync, NotebookLM, and the Gemini app. You can find them all listed here. These services are available for users by default, and admins always have the option to turn them off.
These are the services provided to Google Workspace for Education customers under the Google Workspace for Education agreement. Learn more about the Google Workspace for Education Core Services.
With Google Workspace for Education, education administrators can also enable access to additional services, such as Google Search, Maps, and YouTube, for educational purposes. Additional Services are turned off by default for primary and secondary institutions (K-12), and admins are required to get parental consent before enabling an Additional Service for end users under age 18.
Learn more about the differences for Core Services and additional services, and refer to the Google Privacy Notice to understand what information is collected for additional services.
Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks have built-in defaults for all users in primary and secondary (K-12) institutions, providing them with an experience more appropriate for users under the age of 18.
With Google Workspace for Education, admins also have a setting available to designate users under the age of 18 in higher education institutions, in order to provide the same age-appropriate experience for those users.
No, they will not. There are no ads in Google Workspace for Education Core Services, and we do not collect or use student data to create advertising profiles.
Parents and guardians of Google Workspace for Education students can access their child’s personal information (that is, “Customer Data”) or request that it be deleted through the education organization’s administrator.
If a parent wishes to stop further collection or use of their child’s data in certain services on a school account, they can request that the organization administrator use the service controls available to them to limit the child’s access to features or services, or delete the child’s account entirely. You and your child can also visit their Google Account while signed in to Google Workspace for Education to view and manage the personal information and settings of the account.
Parents can also visit Family Link via the app or online, to add parental online supervision settings like setting screen limits, downtimes, and age-appropriate content filters whenever a child is signed in to a Chromebook with their Family Link account. A school account with Family Link lets the child use school apps like Google Classroom while the same parental controls apply.
Your child’s digital safety is of the utmost importance. Not only do we provide a safer learning environment for your child, we also create resources to help you navigate your child’s digital learning environment.
- Tech Toolkit for Families and Guardians: Security video explains how Google Workspace for Education protects security with built-in protections
- Guardian’s Guide to Privacy and Security provides an overview of how Google Workspace for Education tools combine to provide safer learning
- Guardians Guide to Google Workspace for Education explains the collaborative capabilities and security protections in these tools
- Guardian’s Guide to Classroom provides an overview of Google Classroom, how this tool is used to help guide your child, and security and privacy protections
School-issued Google Account
Google for Education is a suite of tools, including Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks, which are designed for teaching and learning in education settings. These secure, private accounts are managed by the organization’s IT admins.
Education administrators can turn on and off core and additional services to control what services students can access with their school-issued accounts. There is no advertising in Google Workspace for Education Core Services, and user data from school-issued account’s use of the core services is never used for ads personalization.
Personal Google Account
Other Google tools, like Google Search and YouTube, may be used for learning-related purposes, but may not necessarily be accessible from a supervised or school-issued Google Workspace for Education account. Personal Google Accounts are governed by Google’s Consumer Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, where users have the option to disable personalized advertising – and it’s automatically disabled for users under 18. Google provides tools like Family Link to help parents and guardians manage their children’s accounts, devices, and online activity, with features like app approval and screen time limits.
There is no connection between a student’s school-issued account and their personal account – meaning that data from school does not follow learners into their personal accounts, nor does it follow them after they graduate.
With Family Link, parents and guardians can manage their child’s personal account for users under the age of 13. Parents can add a school account to their child’s personal Chromebook at home, and the same parental controls will apply with Family Link.
Screen time limits, downtimes, and other parental controls apply whenever a child is signed in to a Chromebook with their Family Link account. A school account with Family Link lets the child use school apps like Google Classroom while the same parental controls apply.
When a school account is added as a secondary account for a Family Link user, a child can:
- Switch between accounts to check email
- Switch between accounts while on some Chrome Web Store extensions and Android apps, like Google Classroom, to do schoolwork under parent supervision
- Sign in to websites using a school account
Here are some resources to help keep your child safer online – while at home and beyond:
- Family Link shows you how to set screen time, find quality content, and build healthy digital habits with the parental controls
- Google Safety Center gives expert educator tips on managing technology for your family
- Be Internet Awesome family guide provides resources to learn about online safety and citizenship
- Google Families is a resource hub for raising digitally responsible children
- Digital Wellbeing Family Guide helps you start a conversation about tough tech questions and navigate the digital world as a family
- Guardian’s Guide to AI helps families navigate AI responsibly with resources to help you guide your student
- Guardian’s Guide to Privacy & Security is a resource to understand more about Google’s privacy and security standards as well as how to support your student with a secure environment for their learning
- Google’s Guide to AI is a starter guide to learn more about Google AI with FAQs and AI resources
Contact us
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We’re here to help you reach your goals with Google for Education. Contact us, and we’ll assist you with choosing the right technology for your education organization.
Privacy & Security
See how Google protects student and teacher privacy and provides best-in-class security for your institution.