Google admits to actively scanning and analyzing everything you upload. If you value a high level of privacy, Google Drive probably won’t be for you. What about the privacy of your stuff? Google Drive Privacy Practices It’s certainly better security than is utilized by the majority of homes and small businesses. This means that your data is encrypted when passing between Google’s own data centers.īecause Google wants to be able to see everything you upload, they of course cannot claim HIPAA compliance.Īll things considered, Google seems to be doing a very good job of keeping your data safe from hackers. In response to the revelation of the NSA spying efforts, Google started encrypting all data in transit on their internal network.
Metadata is also encrypted while stored.Even if you’re not using Google Drive, this should be enabled on your Google account. Passwords are stolen so easily these days that we simply cannot do without this feature anymore. This process is simply reversed when one of your devices retrieves your data from Google.This adds another layer of security by requiring a second set of encryption keys to get to your data. The AES encryption keys that were used to encrypt your data are then, themselves, encrypted with a rotating set of master keys.This is done on-the-fly before the data is actually stored, which prevents the possible leakage of unencrypted data on their hard drives. While not the 256-bit algorithm that most other services use, this is still perfectly fine. After your data reaches Google, it gets unencrypted then re-encrypted using 128-bit AES.This is the same standard used to encrypt your browser connections to secure (HTTPS) websites. Before your data leaves your device, it is encrypted using the TLS standard.They also offer varying levels of backup protection in case you lose something. Without going into detail, these cloud storage services store your files in a central location so you can access them from several devices and essentially from anywhere in the world. Drive is a direct competitor to other services like Dropbox, iCloud, SpiderOak, and Microsoft OneDrive.įor a more complete list of cloud storage services, see this Wikipedia page. That is to say, on Google’s servers out there on the internet somewhere. Google Drive is a service that lets you store your personal files in the “cloud”. Many of these policies are broad and also apply to some other services like Gmail, but I will not cover beyond what pertains to Google Drive.Ĭheck out my other articles on cloud storage services Dropbox and SpiderOak.
For this article I’ll be focusing specifically on the Google Drive service. How far is Google willing to go to secure your data? It’s a question I get asked a lot. 1 May, 2016 No Comments Bobby Data Security
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