We build a range of services that help millions of people daily to explore and interact with the world in new ways. Our services include:

• Google apps, sites and devices, such as Search, YouTube and Google Home
• Platforms such as the Chrome browser and Android operating system
• Products that are integrated into third-party apps and sites, like ads, analytics and embedded Google Maps

You can use our services in a variety of ways to manage your privacy. For example, you can sign up for a Google Account if you want to create and manage content such as emails and photos, or to see more relevant search results. And you can use many Google services when you’re signed out or without creating an account at all; for example, searching on Google or watching YouTube videos. You can also choose to browse the web in a private mode, like Chrome Incognito mode, which helps keep your browsing private from other people who use your device. And across our services, you can adjust your privacy settings to control whether we collect some types of data and how we use it.

To help explain things as clearly as possible, we’ve added examples, explanatory videos and definitions for key terms. And if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us.

Information that Google collects

We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services

We collect information to provide better services to all our users – from figuring out basic stuff such as which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online or which YouTube videos you might like. The information Google collects, and how that information is used, depends on how you use our services and how you manage your privacy controls.

When you’re not signed in to a Google Account, we store the information that we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application or device that you’re using. This allows us to do things like maintain your preferences across browsing sessions, such as your preferred language or whether to show you more relevant search results or ads based on your activity.

When you’re signed in, we also collect information that we store with your Google Account, which we treat as personal information.

Things that you create or provide to us

When you create a Google Account, you provide us with personal information that includes your name and a password. You can also choose to add a phone number or payment information to your account. Even if you aren’t signed in to a Google Account, you might choose to provide us with information — like an email address to communicate with Google or receive updates about our services.

We also collect the content that you create, upload or receive from others when using our services. This includes things such as email you write and receive, photos and videos that you save, docs and spreadsheets you create and comments that you make on YouTube videos.

Information that we collect as you use our services

Your apps, browsers & devices

We collect information about the apps, browsers and devices that you use to access Google services, which helps us provide features such as automatic product updates and dimming your screen if your battery runs low.

The information that we collect includes unique identifiers, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including operator name and phone number and application version number. We also collect information about the interaction of your apps, browsers and devices with our services, including IP address, crash reports, system activity, and the date, time and referrer URL of your request.

We collect this information when a Google service on your device contacts our servers – for example, when you install an app from the Play Store or when a service checks for automatic updates. If you’re using an Android device with Google apps, your device periodically contacts Google servers to provide information about your device and connection to our services. This information includes things like your device type and operator name, crash reports, which apps you've installed and, depending on your device settings, other information about how you’re using your Android device.

Your activity

We collect information about your activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend a YouTube video that you might like. The activity information that we collect may include:

• Terms that you search for
• Videos that you watch
• Views and interactions with content and ads
• Voice and audio information
• Purchase activity
• People with whom you communicate or share content
• Activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services
• Chrome browsing history that you’ve synced with your Google Account

If you use our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, we may collect call and message log information like your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, sender and recipient email address, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information and types and volumes of calls and messages.

You can visit your Google Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in your account.

Go to Google Account

Your location information

We collect location information when you use our services, which helps us offer features like driving directions, search results for things near you and ads based on your location.

Depending on the products that you’re using and the settings that you choose, Google may use different types of location information to help make some services and products that you use more helpful. These include:

• GPS and other sensor data from your device
• IP address
• Activity on Google services; for example, from your searches or places that you label such as home or work
• Information about things near your device, such as Wi-Fi access points, cell towers and Bluetooth-enabled devices

The types of location data that we collect and how long we store it depend in part on your device and account settings. For example, you can turn your Android device's location on or off using the device's settings app. You can also turn on Timeline if you want to create a private map of where you go with your signed-in devices. And if your Web & App Activity setting is enabled, your searches and other activity from Google services, which may also include location information, is saved to your Google Account. Learn more about how we use location information.

In some circumstances, Google also collects information about you from publicly accessible sources. For example, if your name appears in your local newspaper, Google’s Search engine may index that article and display it to other people if they search for your name. We may also collect information about you from trusted partners, such as directory services which provide us with business information to be displayed on Google’s services, marketing partners who provide us with information about potential customers of our business services, and security partners who provide us with information to protect against abuse. We also receive information from partners to provide advertising and research services on their behalf.

We use various technologies to collect and store information, including cookies, pixel tags, local storage, such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases and server logs.

Why Google collects data

We use data to build better services

We use the information that we collect from all our services for the following purposes:

Provide our services

We use your information to deliver our services, such as processing the terms you search for in order to return results or helping you share content by suggesting recipients from your contacts.

Maintain & improve our services

We also use your information to ensure that our services are working as intended, such as tracking outages or troubleshooting issues that you report to us. And we use your information to make improvements to our services – for example, understanding which search terms are most frequently misspelled helps us improve spell-check features used across our services.

Develop new services

We use the information we collect in existing services to help us develop new ones. For example, understanding how people organised their photos in Picasa, Google’s first photos app, helped us design and launch Google Photos.

Provide personalised services, including content and ads

We use the information that we collect to customise our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalised content and customised search results. For example, Security Check-Up provides security tips adapted to how you use Google products. And, depending on your available settings, Google Play could use information like apps that you’ve already installed and videos that you’ve watched on YouTube to suggest new apps that you might like.

Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalised ads based on your interests and activity across Google services. For example, if you search for 'mountain bikes', you may see ads for sports equipment on YouTube. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings in My Ad Centre.

• We don’t show you personalised ads based on sensitive categories, such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
• We don’t show you personalised ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail or Photos.
• 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.

Go to My Ad Centre

Measure performance

We use data for analytics and measurement to understand how our services are used. For example, we analyse data about your visits to our sites to do things like optimise product design. And we also use data about the ads that you interact with, including your related Google Search activity, to help advertisers understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We use a variety of tools to do this, including Google Analytics. When you visit sites or use apps that use Google Analytics, a Google Analytics customer may choose to enable Google to link information about your activity from that site or app with activity from other sites or apps that use our ad services.

Communicate with you

We use information that we collect, such as your email address, to interact with you directly. For example, we may send you a notification if we detect suspicious activity, such as an attempt to sign in to your Google Account from an unusual location. Or we may let you know about upcoming changes or improvements to our services. And if you contact Google, we’ll keep a record of your request in order to help solve any issues you might be facing.

Protect Google, our users and the public

We use information to help improve the safety and reliability of our services. This includes detecting, preventing and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks and technical issues that could harm Google, our users or the public.

We use different technologies to process your information for these purposes. We use automated systems that analyse your content to provide you with things like customised search results, personalised ads or other features tailored to how you use our services. And we analyse your content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognise patterns in data. For example, Google Translate helps people communicate across languages by detecting common language patterns in phrases that you ask it to translate.

We may use the information that we collect across our services and across your devices for the purposes described above. For example, depending on your available settings, if you watch videos of guitar players on YouTube, you might see an ad for guitar lessons on a site that uses our ad products. Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google’s services and the ads delivered by Google.

If other users already have your email address or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Account information, such as your name and photo. For example, this helps people identify an email coming from you.

We’ll ask for your consent before using your information for a purpose that isn’t covered in this Privacy Policy.

Your privacy controls

You have choices regarding the information we collect and how it’s used

This section describes key controls for managing your privacy across our services. You can also visit the Privacy Check-Up, which provides an opportunity to review and adjust important privacy settings. In addition to these tools, we also offer specific privacy settings in our products – you can learn more in our Product Privacy Guide.

Go to Privacy Check-Up

Managing, reviewing, and updating your information

When you’re signed in, you can always review and update information by visiting the services you use. For example, Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content that you’ve saved with Google.

We also built a place for you to review and control information saved in your Google Account. Your Google Account includes:

Privacy controls

Activity Controls

Decide what types of activity you’d like saved in your account. For example, if you have YouTube History turned on, the videos that you watch and the things that you search for are saved in your account so that you can get better recommendations and remember where you left off. And if you have Web & App Activity turned on, your searches and activity from other Google services are saved in your account so that you can get more personalised experiences like faster searches and more helpful app and content recommendations. Web & App Activity also has a subsetting that lets you control whether information about your activity on other sites, apps and devices that use Google services, such as apps that you install and use on Android, is saved in your Google Account and used to improve Google services.

Go to Activity Controls

Ad settings

Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal information is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.

Go to My Ad Centre

About you

Manage personal info in your Google Account and control who can see it across Google services.

Go to About You

Shared endorsements

Choose whether your name and photo appear next to your activity, such as reviews and recommendations, which appear in ads.

Go to Shared Endorsements

Sites and apps that use Google services

Manage information that websites and apps using Google services, like Google Analytics, may share with Google when you visit or interact with their services.

Go to How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services

Ways to review & update your information

My Activity

My Activity allows you to review and control data that’s saved to your Google Account when you’re signed in and using Google services, like searches that you’ve done or your visits to Google Play. You can browse by date and by topic, and delete part or all of your activity.

Go to My Activity

Google Dashboard

Google Dashboard allows you to manage information associated with specific products.

Go to Dashboard

Your personal information

Manage your contact information, such as your name, email and phone number.

Go to Personal Info

When you’re signed out, you can manage information associated with your browser or device, including:

• Signed-out search personalisation: Choose whether your search activity is used to offer you more relevant results and recommendations.
• YouTube settings: Pause and delete your YouTube Search History and your YouTube Watch History.
• Ad Settings: Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads.

Exporting, removing & deleting your information

You can export a copy of content in your Google Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Google.

Export your data

To delete your information, you can:

• Delete your content from specific Google services
• Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
• Delete specific Google products, including your information associated with those products
• Delete your entire Google Account

Delete your information

Inactive Account Manager allows you to give someone else access to parts of your Google Account in case you’re unexpectedly unable to use your account.

And finally, you can also request to remove content from specific Google services based on applicable law and our policies.

There are other ways to control the information that Google collects whether or not you’re signed in to a Google Account, including:

• Browser settings: For example, you can configure your browser to indicate when Google has set a cookie in your browser. You can also configure your browser to block all cookies from a specific domain or all domains. But remember that our services rely on cookies to function properly, for things such as remembering your language preferences.
• Device-level settings: Your device may have controls that determine what information we collect. For example, you can modify location settings on your Android device.

Sharing your information

When you share your information

Many of our services let you share information with other people, and you have control over how you share. For example, you can share videos on YouTube publicly or you can decide to keep your videos private. Remember, when you share information publicly, your content may become accessible through search engines, including Google Search.

When you’re signed in and interact with some Google services, like leaving comments on a YouTube video or reviewing an app in Play, your name and photo appear next to your activity. We may also display this information in ads, depending on your Shared Endorsements setting.

When Google shares your information

We do not share your personal information with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Google except in the following cases:

With your consent

We’ll share personal information outside of Google when we have your consent. For example, if you use Google Home to make a reservation through a booking service, we’ll get your permission before sharing your name or phone number with the restaurant. We also provide you with controls to review and manage third-party apps and sites that you have given access to data in your Google Account. We’ll ask for your explicit consent to share any sensitive personal information.

With domain administrators

If you’re a student, or work for an organisation that uses Google services, your domain administrator and resellers who manage your account will have access to your Google Account. They may be able to:

• Access and retain information stored in your account, such as your email
• View statistics regarding your account, such as how many apps you install
• Change your account password
• Suspend or terminate your account access
• Receive your account information in order to satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request
• Restrict your ability to delete or edit your information or your privacy settings

For external processing

We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our privacy policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use service providers to help operate our data centres, deliver our products and services, improve our internal business processes, and offer additional support to customers and users. We also use service providers to help review YouTube video content for public safety, and analyse and listen to samples of saved user audio to help improve Google’s audio recognition technologies.

For legal reasons

We will share personal information outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

• Respond to any applicable law, regulation,legal process or enforceable governmental request. We share information about the number and type of requests that we receive from governments in our Transparency Report.
• Enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
• Detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
• Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public.

We may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – such as publishers, advertisers, developers or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies.

If Google is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, we’ll continue to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Keeping your information secure

We build security into our services to protect your information

All Google products are built with strong security features that continuously protect your information. The insights we gain from maintaining our services help us detect and automatically block security threats from ever reaching you. And if we do detect something risky that we think you should know about, we’ll notify you and help guide you through steps to stay better protected.

We work hard to protect you and Google from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold, including:

• We use encryption to keep your data private while in transit
• We offer a range of security features, like Safe Browsing, Security Check-Up and 2 Step Verification to help you protect your account
• We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to prevent unauthorised access to our systems
• We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need that information in order to process it. Anyone with this access is subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.

Exporting & deleting your information

You can export a copy of your information or delete it from your Google Account at any time

You can export a copy of content in your Google Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Google.