Your privacy is protected by
responsible data practices.
Data plays an important role in making the products and services that you use every day more helpful. We are committed to treating that data responsibly and protecting your privacy with strict protocols and innovative privacy technologies.
DATA MINIMISATION
Limiting the personal information that is used and saved
We believe that products should keep your information for only as long as it’s useful and helpful to you – whether that’s being able to find your favourite destinations in Maps or getting recommendations for what to watch on YouTube.
The first time you turn on Location History – which is off by default – your Auto-delete option will be set to 18 months by default. Web & App Activity Auto-delete will also default to 18 months for new accounts. This means that your activity data will be automatically and continuously deleted after 18 months, rather than kept until you choose to delete it. You can always turn these settings off or change your Auto-delete setting at any time.
BLOCKING ACCESS
We never sell your personal information, and give you control over who has access
We are committed to protecting your data from third parties. That’s why it’s our strict policy never to sell your personal information to anyone. We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to. For example, if you see an ad for a nearby flower shop and select the 'tap to call' button, we’ll connect your call and may share your phone number with the flower shop. If you’re using an Android device, we require third-party apps to ask for your permission to access certain types of data – like your photos, contacts or location.
PRIVACY INNOVATION
Advanced privacy techniques keep your personal information private
We are continuously innovating new technologies that protect your private information without impacting your experiences on our products.
We pioneered a technique called federated learning to keep your data on your device for features like Pixel face unlock, so we can process the data directly on your phone.
We use leading anonymisation techniques to protect your data while making our services work better for you. For example, we aggregate and anonymise data from millions of users to suggest alternative routes that can get you home faster.
To offer features like place busyness in Maps, we apply an advanced anonymisation technology called differential privacy that adds noise to your information so that it can’t be used to personally identify you.
Privacy reviews
throughout every product’s development
Privacy is at the core of how we build our products, with rigorous privacy standards guiding every stage of product development. Each product and feature adheres to these privacy standards, which are implemented through comprehensive privacy reviews. Learn more in our privacy policy.
DATA TRANSPARENCY
Making it easy to view and delete your data
How you use our products and services is a personal choice that’s up to you. To help you make informed decisions about what data to save, share or delete, we make it easy to understand what data is being collected and why.
For example, with the Dashboard, you can see an overview of the Google products that you use and the things that you store like your emails and photos. And with My Activity, it’s easy to see or delete data collected from your activity across Google services, including things that you’ve searched for, viewed and watched.
DATA PORTABILITY
Empowering you to take your data with you
Every user should have access to the content that they’ve shared with us – at any time and for any reason. That’s why we created 'Download your data' – so that you can download your photos, emails, contacts and bookmarks. It’s your choice to make a copy of your data, back it up or even move it to another service.
You are always in control of the data saved to your Google Account. Learn more here.
with applicable data protection laws
We are always working to stay compliant with applicable privacy regulations. Over the years, we have worked closely with data protection authorities around the world and have implemented strong privacy protections that reflect their guidance. And we continue to invest significantly to upgrade our systems and policies as privacy laws are enacted around the world.
keep you safe online.