Google Workspace security whitepaper

How Google Workspace protects your data

Introduction
Google’s security and privacy focused culture
- Google’s security and privacy focused culture
Operational security
- Operational security
Technology with security at its core
- Technology with security at its core
Supporting compliance requirements
- Supporting compliance requirements
  - Regulatory compliance
  - Independent third-party certifications and attestations
Data usage
- Data usage
Data access and restrictions
- Data access and restrictions
  - Administrative access
  - Third-party suppliers
Empowering users and administrators to improve security and compliance
- Empowering users and administrators to improve security and compliance
Conclusion

Data Recovery

Restore a recently deleted user

An administrator can restore a deleted user account for up to twenty days after the date of deletion. After twenty days, the Admin console permanently deletes the user account, and it can’t be restored, even if you contact Google technical support. Please note that only customer administrators can delete accounts.

Restore a user’s Drive or Gmail data

An administrator can restore a user’s Drive or Gmail data for up to 25 days after the data is removed from the user’s trash, subject to any retention policies set in Vault. After 25 days, the data cannot be restored, even if you contact technical support. Google will delete all customer-deleted data from its systems as soon as reasonably practicable and within a maximum period of 180 days.

Retention and eDiscovery

An administrator can turn on Google Vault to retain, hold, search, and export data in support of your organization’s retention and eDiscovery needs. Vault supports such data as Gmail messages, files in Google Drive, and recordings in Google Meet, among others.

Data Residency

As an administrator, you can choose to store your covered data in a specific geographic location (the United States or Europe) by using a data region policy. Data region policies cover the primary data-at-rest (including backups) for these Google Workspace Core Services. Covered data includes Drive file content, Google Chat messages and attachments, Gmail mail subjects and messages, as well as other Core Services data.

4 Further information about deploying 2-step verification can be found on our support page.
5 See security best practices guidance on our security checklists page.
6 Integrated with Cloud Identity. Using context-aware access capabilities to protect access to Google Workspace apps requires a Cloud Identity Premium or Google Workspace Enterprise license.
7 As of February 2020.
8 As of February 2020.
9 Included with Google Workspace Enterprise edition and Google Workspace Enterprise for Education.
10 You must be an administrator with a Google Workspace Enterprise, Google Workspace for Education Plus, Drive Enterprise, or Cloud Identity Premium Edition license to access the security center. With Drive Enterprise or Cloud Identity Premium Edition, you receive a subset of security center reports on the security dashboard.
11 Included as standard with Google Workspace.

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