Security turned on: Why Google Meets connects and protects

Recent times have shone the light on how technology can connect the world during times of need. From business, to families, to care providers. Where connections would otherwise be impossible, technology allows for clear and effective communications, at any time.

In particular the power of video technologies has surfaced as paramount in maintaining and building connections. At Google, we have recently made Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with daily meeting participants surpassing 100 million users. However, bringing an enterprise product to everyone comes with responsibility, particularly around security. It’s a responsibility Google takes very seriously.

Google’s approach to security is very simple: all of our products are safe by default. Meet is built on a secure foundation and it’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the beginning. Meet hosts approximately 3 billion minutes of video meetings, adding roughly 3 million new users every day - so it’s paramount we get this right.

We’ve invested years in developing Meet to be a secure video conferencing tool that’s trusted by governments, schools and families globally. Meet is designed, built and operated to be secure at scale providing the protections needed to keep every user safe, all data secure, and information private.

But how do we do this? Google Meet’s security controls are turned on by default, so this means in most cases, organisations and users don’t even have to do a thing to ensure the right protections are in place. Some of our default-on security measures include providing a strong set of host controls such as the ability to admit or deny entry to a meeting, and mute or remove participants, if needed. We also do not allow anonymous users to join meetings created by individual accounts.

Meet’s meeting codes are complex by default and therefore resilient to brute-force “guessing.” Video meetings are also encrypted in transit, and all recordings stored in Google Drive are encrypted in transit and at rest. Another important aspect is that Meet works entirely in Chrome and other modern browsers, so it’s less vulnerable to security threats.

In fact, all of Google’s products, including Meet, regularly undergo independent verification of their security, privacy, and compliance controls, achieving certifications, attestations of compliance, and audits against standards around the world. Our global compliance certifications can also help support regulatory requirements such as GDPR.

Whilst we know that the COVID-19 pandemic won’t last forever, we can promise to continue to protect Google Meet users and their data, to always remain secure, and safe.

Please visit https://apps.google.com/meet/to learn more about Meet.