Keeping you safe online means protecting your information and respecting your privacy. That’s why, in every product that we make, we focus on keeping your information secure, treating it responsibly and keeping you in control. Our teams work every day to make Google products safe no matter what you’re doing – browsing the web, managing your inbox or getting directions.
Your information is protected by world-class security. You can always control your privacy settings in your Google Account.
- For general information about privacy on Drive, read this article.
- For more about privacy tools, visit the Google Safety Centre.
- For details about privacy in work and school accounts, use the Google Workspace Security Resources.
A more helpful and personalised experience for you
When you use Google Drive, we process some data to offer you better experiences in the product. Your information stays secure. You can control your privacy settings at any time in your Google Account.
Your content is stored securely
When you upload a file of any type to Google Drive, it is stored securely in our world-class data centres. Data is encrypted in-transit and at-rest. If you choose to access these files offline, we store this info on your device.
Your Google Account comes with built-in security designed to detect and block threats like spam, phishing and malware. Your activity is stored using strong industry standards and practices.
Your name & email address help sync your data and keep you updated
To store your preferences, help you sign in, get files you've uploaded through other devices and inform you of service updates and user-to-user activity, we save your name and email address.
Your information helps you create and manage your Google Account
To create a brand new Google Account, we collect your name and phone number. When you manage your Google Account, you can choose to provide your physical address, upload your contacts or add a profile photo.
Drive uses data to improve your experience
To provide services such as spam filtering, virus detection, malware protection and the ability to search for files within your individual account, we process your content.
To improve Drive’s performance and reliability, and to help with troubleshooting in case of issues while you use Drive, we collect performance data and crash analytics. We also save this info to help prevent abuse of our services and for analysis.
Drive doesn’t use your content for advertising
We don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content – including Drive – for advertising purposes. End of story.
Stay in control of your content with easy-to-use settings
You decide what content is shared and with whom
The content you save on Drive is private to you. It is not available to others, unless you choose to share it. Learn how to share or stop sharing files in Google Drive.
Google respects your privacy. We access your private contentonly when we have your permission or are required to by law. With the Google Transparency Report, we share data about how the policies and actions of governments and corporations affect privacy, security and access to information.
If you have a work or school account, your organisation can review logs of actions taken by Google when accessing content. Learn how to view logs with Access Transparency. Learn how Google protects your organisation's security and privacy.
It’s easy to view & control your data
With the Google Account Dashboard, you can see an overview of the Google products you use and the things you store, such as 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 you’ve searched for, viewed and watched. Learn how to view and control activity in your Google Account.
Control your search history
To save you time when you search in Drive by showing you recent searches you’ve made there, we store those search queries.
To review or manage your Drive search history, use My Activity.
Sync your storage space with your purchase history
To retrieve previous Google Drive and Google One storage purchases you may have made, we collect your purchase history info. We do not use your purchase history for ads.
Sync your services with your location
To understand how your experience of the product may relate to geography, such as when you send feedback to Google, and to keep your account secure, such as if we notice you have signed in from a new location, we save some location info.
You can take your data with you
Everyone should have access to the content that they’ve shared with us – any time and for any reason. That’s why we created Download your data – so you can download your photos, emailsand 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 how to download your data.
If you have a work or school account, your organisation can choose to download your data and to limit you from downloading it. Learn how an organisation can export its data.
Related articles
All accounts
- Is Google Drive secure?
- Google Drive Terms of Service
- Google's Privacy Policy
Work or school accounts
- View logs of Google access to user content with Access Transparency
- How Google protects your organisation's security and privacy
- View Drive DLP data protection insights reports
