How Google helps you share some of your account data with third parties safely

Before you decide to give access to your Google Account, we’ll help you understand what data the third-party app or service has requested.

You can review:

• The Google services that the third party has requested access to.
• The level of data access the third party has and what actions it can take with your Google data.

Third-party apps or services may request access to data you’d consider personal or sensitive. Examples of Google products that may contain sensitive info include:

• Gmail: Your emails may contain the names of your contacts, your private correspondence, or sensitive documents.
• Photos: Your Google Photos albums may have photos that you’d prefer not to share or have visible to others, like pictures of your family or copies of official documents.
  • Some photos are tagged automatically with a date and location.
• Drive: Your Google Drive may contain sensitive files you’ve uploaded like:
  • Personal photos
  • Medical records
  • Financial records
  • Official reports
  • Presentations
• Calendar: Your Google Calendar may contain important info about your daily routine and private events, like the locations, guests, and descriptions of appointments or meetings.
• Contacts: Your Google Contacts may include the names, phone numbers, addresses, and contact details of people you know.

Tip: If you share documents with other people, third-party apps and services can find their names and email addresses.

When you give a third-party app or service some access to your Google Account data, Google doesn’t receive access to your account on the third-party app or service.

When you give Google permission to access certain data in the third-party account, the type of sharing is different from sharing some access to your Google Account data. Learn more about Google Account linking.

The duration for how long a third-party app or service stores your data depends on their retention policy. To learn more about how a third-party app or service uses your data, go to their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. You may find this info on the third-party app or service or their website.

Before you give a third-party app or service access to your Google Account, consider these factors:

• Security: If the third-party app’s server is breached, unauthorized people may access your data.
  • When you give a third-party app or service access to your Google Account, they can copy and save your data on their own servers. Since Google can’t protect the data on another company’s servers, your data may be subject to greater data security and privacy risks.
• Data use: The third-party app or service may misuse or share your data inappropriately.
• Data deletion: You may not be able to quickly or automatically delete your data from their servers as it depends on the third-party app or service. It may also be difficult to delete the account you created on the third-party app or service.
• Policy changes: You may not directly get notifications from the third-party app or service about changes in their policies and practices.
• Data visibility: A third-party app or service may have individuals who look at the Google Account data that you’ve shared with them.

Apps may be unverified because:

• The developer is still testing the app.
• The app is internal and limited to a specific organization.

Untrustworthy developers may use unverified apps for harmful purposes, like to install unwanted software or steal personal information. Share your data only if you’re confident to trust the app developer.

• Third-party app developers may not provide links to their Terms of Service or Privacy Policy to Google because:
  • The developer is still testing their app.
  • An organization built the app for use by its own employees or members.
• When you allow a third-party app or service access to your Google Account or Google Account data, it’s important to be cautious. To understand how they process and protect your data, make sure you visit the third-party’s site to review their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.