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Google Privacy Policy en-GB
Google Privacy Policy en-GB
This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it
and how you can update, manage, export and delete your information.
Privacy Check-Up
Archived versions
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
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 like emails and photos, or see more
relevant search results. And you can use many Google services when you’re signed out or without
creating an account at all, like searching on Google or watching YouTube videos. You can also
choose to browse the web in a private mode, like Chrome Incognito mode. And across our services,
you can adjust your privacy settings to control what we collect and how your information is used.
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.
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.
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
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:
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
We collect information about your location when you use our services, which helps us offer features
like driving directions, search results for things near you, and ads based on your general location.
IP address
Activity on Google services, such as your searches and places that you label like 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 Location History 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 who 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 advertising 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.
We use the information that we collect from all our services for the following purposes:
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.
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.
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.
We use the information 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 Google Play uses
information such as apps that you’ve already installed and videos that you’ve watched on YouTube to
suggest new apps you might like.
Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalised ads based on your interests. For
example, if you search for 'mountain bikes', you may see an ad for sports equipment when you’re
browsing a site that shows ads served by Google. You can control what information we use to show
you ads by visiting your ad settings.
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 Ad Settings
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 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.
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.
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 combine the information we collect among our services and across your devices for the
purposes described above. For example, 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.
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
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 Ad Settings
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
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
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.
Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
Delete specific Google products, including your information associated with those products
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.
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.
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
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
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.
We will share personal information outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use,
preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
Meet 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.
Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public, as
required or permitted by law.
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.
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 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.
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.
Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
Delete specific Google products, including your information associated with those products
We retain the data that we collect for different periods of time depending on what it is, how we use it
and how you configure your settings:
Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as your personal info or the content that you
create or upload, like photos and documents. You can also delete activity information saved in
your account, or choose to get it deleted automatically after a set period of time. We’ll keep this
data in your Google Account until you remove it or choose to have it removed.
Other data is deleted or anonymised automatically after a set period of time, such as
advertising data in server logs.
We keep some data until you delete your Google Account, such as information about how often
you use our services.
And some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or
legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.
When you delete data, we follow a deletion process to make sure that your data is safely and
completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymised form. We try to ensure that our
services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be
delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup
systems.
You can read more about Google’s data retention periods, including how long it takes for us to delete
your information.
We regularly review this Privacy Policy and make sure that we process your information in ways that
comply with it.
Data transfers
We maintain servers around the world and your information may be processed on servers located
outside the country where you live. Data protection laws vary among countries, with some providing
more protection than others. Regardless of where your information is processed, we apply the same
protections described in this policy. We also comply with certain legal frameworks relating to the
transfer of data.
When we receive formal written complaints, we respond by contacting the person who made the
complaint. We work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection
authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of your data that we cannot resolve with
you directly.
The information practices of other companies and organisations that advertise our services
Services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites they offer that
may include Google services to which the policy applies, or products or sites displayed to you
in search results, or linked from our services
Payments
Fiber
Google Fi
Read Along
YouTube Kids
Google Accounts Managed with Family Link, for Children under 13 (or applicable age in your
country)
Voice and audio collection from children’s features on the Google Assistant
If you’re a member of an organisation that uses Google Workspace or Google Cloud Platform, learn
how these services collect and use your personal information in the Google Cloud Privacy Notice.
Your Google Account is home to many of the settings you can use to manage your account
Privacy Check-Up guides you through key privacy settings for your Google Account
Google’s safety centre helps you learn more about our built-in security, privacy controls and
tools to help set digital ground rules for your family online
Google’s teen privacy guide provides answers to some of the top questions that we get asked
about privacy
Privacy & Terms provides more context regarding this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service
How Google uses pattern recognition to recognise things such as faces in photos
How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services
Key terms
Affiliates
An affiliate is an entity that belongs to the Google group of companies, including the following
companies that provide consumer services in the EU: Google Ireland Limited, Google Commerce Ltd,
Google Payment Corp and Google Dialer Inc. Learn more about the companies providing business
services in the EU.
Algorithm
An application data cache is a data repository on a device. It can, for example, enable a web
application to run without an Internet connection and improve the performance of the application by
enabling faster loading of content.
Cookies
A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit
a website. When you visit the site again, the cookie allows that site to recognise your browser.
Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can configure your browser to
refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or
services may not function properly without cookies. Learn more about how Google uses cookies
and how Google uses data, including cookies, when you use our partners’ sites or apps.
Device
A device is a computer that can be used to access Google services. For example, desktop
computers, tablets, smart speakers and smartphones are all considered devices.
Google Account
You may access some of our services by signing up for a Google Account and providing us with
some personal information (typically your name, email address and a password). This account
information is used to authenticate you when you access Google services and protect your account
from unauthorised access by others. You can edit or delete your account at any time through your
Google Account settings.
IP address
Every device connected to the Internet is assigned a number known as an Internet protocol (IP)
address. These numbers are usually assigned in geographic blocks. An IP address can often be used
to identify the location from which a device is connecting to the Internet.
Personal information
This is information that you provide to us which personally identifies you, such as your name, email
address or billing information, or other data that can be reasonably linked to such information by
Google, such as information we associate with your Google Account.
Pixel tag
A pixel tag is a type of technology placed on a website or within the body of an email for the purpose
of tracking certain activity, such as views of a website or when an email is opened. Pixel tags are
often used in combination with cookies.
Referrer URL
A Referrer URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is information transmitted to a destination web page by
a web browser, typically when you click a link to that page. The Referrer URL contains the URL of the
last web page the browser visited.
This is a particular category of personal information relating to topics such as confidential medical
facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality.
Server logs
Like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our
sites. These “server logs” typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type,
browser language, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies that may uniquely
identify your browser.
A typical log entry for a search for 'cars' looks like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cars -
740674ce2123e969
123.45.67.89 is the Internet Protocol address assigned to the user by the user’s ISP. Depending
on the user’s service, a different address may be assigned to the user by their service provider
each time they connect to the Internet.
Firefox 1.0.7; Windows NT 5.1 is the browser and operating system being used.
740674ce2123a969 is the unique cookie ID assigned to this particular computer the first time it
visited Google. (Cookies can be deleted by users. If the user has deleted the cookie from the
computer since the last time they’ve visited Google, then it will be the unique cookie ID
assigned to their device the next time they visit Google from that particular device).
Unique identifiers
A unique identifier is a string of characters that can be used to uniquely identify a browser, app or
device. Different identifiers vary in how permanent they are, whether they can be reset by users and
how they can be accessed.
Unique identifiers can be used for various purposes, including security and fraud detection, syncing
services such as your email inbox, remembering your preferences and providing personalised
advertising. For example, unique identifiers stored in cookies help sites display content in your
browser in your preferred language. You can configure your browser to refuse all cookies or to
indicate when a cookie is being sent. Learn more about how Google uses cookies.
On other platforms besides browsers, unique identifiers are used to recognise a specific device or
app on that device. For example, a unique identifier such as the Advertising ID is used to provide
relevant advertising on Android devices, and can be managed in your device’s settings. Unique
identifiers may also be incorporated into a device by its manufacturer (sometimes called a
universally unique ID or UUID), such as the IMEI-number of a mobile phone. For example, a device’s
unique identifier can be used to customise our service to your device or analyse device issues
related to our services.
Additional Context
For example, if you watch videos about baking on YouTube, you may see more ads that relate to
baking as you browse the web. We also may use your IP address to determine your approximate
location, so that we can serve you ads for a nearby pizza delivery service if you search for 'pizza'.
Learn more about Google ads and why you may see particular ads.
For example, advertisers may upload data from their loyalty-card programs so that they can better
understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We only provide aggregated reports to
advertisers that don’t reveal information about individual people.
Android devices with Google apps include devices sold by Google or one of our partners and include
phones, cameras, vehicles, wearables and televisions. These devices use Google Play Services and
other pre-installed apps that include services such as Gmail, Maps, your phone’s camera and phone
dialler, text-to-speech conversion, keyboard input and security features. Learn more about Google
Play services.
When you’re signed in to your Google Account and search on Google, you can see search
results from the public web, along with relevant information from the content that you have in
other Google products, such as Gmail or Google Calendar. This can include things such as the
status of your upcoming flights, restaurant and hotel reservations or your photos. Learn more
If you have communicated with someone via Gmail and want to add them to a Google Doc or an
event in Google Calendar, Google makes it easy to do so by auto-completing their email
address when you start to type in their name. This feature makes it easier to share things with
people you know. Learn more
The Google app can use data that you have stored in other Google products to show you
personalised content, depending on your settings. For example, if you have searches stored in
your Web & App Activity, the Google app can show you news articles and other information
about your interests, for example sports scores, based on your activity. Learn more
If you link your Google Account to your Google Home, you can manage your information and
get things done through the Google Assistant. For example, you can add events to your Google
Calendar or get your schedule for the day, ask for status updates on your upcoming flight or
send information such as driving directions to your phone. Learn more
For example, when you’re signed in to your Google Account and have the Web & App Activity control
enabled, you can obtain more relevant search results that are based on your previous searches and
activity from other Google services. You can learn more here. You may also get customised search
results even when you’re signed out. If you don’t want this level of search customisation, you can
search and browse privately or turn off signed-out search personalisation.
We use the IP address assigned to your device to send you the data you requested, such as
loading a YouTube video
We use unique identifiers stored in cookies on your device to help us authenticate you as the
person who should have access to your Google Account
Photos and videos you upload to Google Photos are used to help you create albums,
animations and other creations that you can share. Learn more
A flight confirmation email that you receive may be used to create a 'check-in' button that
appears in your Gmail
When you purchase services or physical goods from us, you may provide us information like
your delivery address or delivery instructions. We use this information for things like
processing, fulfilling and delivering your order, and to provide support in connection with the
product or service that you purchase.
detect abuse
When we detect spam, malware, illegal content and other forms of abuse on our systems in violation
of our policies, we may disable your account or take other appropriate action. In certain
circumstances, we may also report the violation to appropriate authorities.
devices
For example, we can use information from your devices to help you decide which device you’d like to
use to install an app or view a movie that you buy from Google Play. We also use this information to
help protect your account.
For example, we analyse how people interact with advertising to improve the performance of our
ads.
For example, we continuously monitor our systems to look for problems. And if we find something
wrong with a specific feature, reviewing activity information collected before the problem started
allows us to fix things more quickly.
If you use Google’s Location services on Android, we can improve the performance of apps that rely
on your location, such as Google Maps. If you use Google’s Location services, your device sends
information to Google about its location, sensors (like accelerometer) and nearby cell towers and
Wi-Fi access points (such as MAC address and signal strength). All these things help to determine
your location. You can use your device settings to enable Google Location services. Learn more
legal process, or enforceable governmental request
As with other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from
governments and courts around the world to disclose user data. Respect for the privacy and security
of data that you store with Google underpins our approach to complying with these legal requests.
Our legal team reviews each and every request, regardless of type, and we frequently push back
when a request appears to be overly broad or doesn’t follow the correct process. Find out more in
our Transparency Report.
make improvements
For example, we use cookies to analyse how people interact with our services. And that analysis can
help us build better products. For example, it may help us discover that it’s taking people too long to
complete a certain task or that they have trouble finishing steps at all. We can then redesign that
feature and improve the product for everyone.
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies, which means the cookies are set by the Google
Analytics customer. Using our systems, data generated through Google Analytics can be linked by
the Google Analytics customer and by Google to third-party cookies that are related to visits to
other websites. For example, an advertiser may want to use its Google Analytics data to create more
relevant ads, or to further analyse its traffic. Learn more
our users
For example, to prevent abuse and increase transparency and accountability over our online content
moderation practices, Google shares data about requests for removal of content from our services
with Lumen, which collects and analyses these requests to facilitate research to help Internet users
understand their rights. Learn more.
payment information
For example, if you add a credit card or other payment method to your Google Account, you can use
it to buy things across our services, such as apps in the Play Store. We may also ask for other
information, such as a business tax ID, to help process your payment. In some cases, we may also
need to verify your identity and may ask you for information to do this.
We may also use payment information to verify that you meet age requirements, if, for example, you
enter an incorrect date of birth indicating that you’re not old enough to have a Google Account. Learn
more
personalised ads
You may also see personalised ads based on information from the advertiser. If you shopped on an
advertiser’s website, for example, they can use that visit information to show you ads. Learn more
phone number
If you add your phone number to your account, it can be used for different purposes across Google
services, depending on your settings. For example, your phone number can be used to help you
access your account if you forget your password, help people find and connect with you and make
the ads you see more relevant to you. Learn more
For example, information about security threats can help us notify you if we think your account has
been compromised (at which point we can help you take steps to protect your account).
For example, we use a cookie called ‘lbcs’ that makes it possible for you to open many Google Docs
in one browser. Blocking this cookie would prevent Google Docs from working as expected. Learn
more
Some examples of how we use your information to help keep our services safe and reliable include:
Collecting and analysing IP addresses and cookie data to protect against automated abuse.
This abuse takes many forms, such as sending spam to Gmail users, stealing money from
advertisers by fraudulently clicking on ads or censoring content by launching a Distributed
Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
The 'last account activity' feature in Gmail can help you find out if and when someone accessed
your email without your knowledge. This feature shows you information about recent activity in
Gmail, such as the IP addresses that accessed your mail, the associated location and the date
and time of access. Learn more
sensitive categories
When showing you personalised ads, we use topics that we think might be of interest to you based
on your activity. For example, you may see ads for things such as 'Cooking and Recipes' or 'Air
Travel'. We don’t use topics or show personalised ads based on sensitive categories such as race,
religion, sexual orientation or health. And we require the same from advertisers who use our
services.
For example, we operate data centres located around the world to help keep our products
continuously available for users.
Google Voice, for making and receiving calls, sending text messages and managing voicemail
Google Duo, for making and receiving video calls and sending and receiving messages
show trends
When lots of people start searching for something, it can provide useful information about particular
trends at that time. Google Trends samples Google web searches to estimate the popularity of
searches over a certain period of time and shares those results publicly in aggregated terms. Learn
more
For example, you can delete your blog from Blogger or a Google Site you own from Google Sites.
You can also delete reviews that you’ve left on apps, games and other content in the Play Store.
specific partners
For example, we allow YouTube creators and advertisers to work with measurement companies to
learn about the audience of their YouTube videos or ads, using cookies or similar technologies.
Another example is merchants on our shopping pages, who use cookies to understand how many
different people see their product listings. Learn more about these partners and how they use your
information.
Your Chrome browsing history is only saved to your account if you’ve enabled Chrome
synchronisation with your Google Account. Learn more
For example, when you type an address in the To, Cc or Bcc field of an email you’re composing,
Gmail will suggest addresses based on the people you contact most frequently.
the public
For example, we process information about requests to remove content from our services under
Google's content removal policies or applicable law to assess the request, and to ensure
transparency, improve accountability, and prevent abuse and fraud in these practices.
third parties
For example, we process your information to report usage statistics to rights holders about how
their content was used in our services. We may also process your information if people search for
your name and we display search results for sites containing publicly available information about
you.
For example, you can choose whether you want Google to save an audio recording to your Google
Account when you interact with Google Search, Assistant and Maps. When your device detects an
audio activation command, like 'Hey Google', Google records your voice and audio plus a few
seconds before the activation. Learn more
This activity might come from your use of Google services, for example from syncing your account
with Chrome or your visits to sites and apps that partner with Google. Many websites and apps
partner with Google to improve their content and services. For example, a website might use our
advertising services (like AdSense) or analytics tools (like Google Analytics), or it might embed
other content (such as videos from YouTube). These services may share information about your
activity with Google and, depending on your account settings, and the products in use (for instance,
when a partner uses Google Analytics in conjunction with our advertising services), this data may be
associated with your personal information.
Find out more about how Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps.