Google partners with Thales to improve privacy and confidentiality in Google Workspace

Google has partnered with Thales to expand support for the privacy and confidentiality capabilities of Google Workspace.

Thales, a French company providing services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets, has announced its CipherTrust Manager console and SafeNet Trusted Access solution have been integrated with Google Workspace client-side encryption, which is a new privacy and confidentiality offering for Google Workspace users.

Google says this will provide better key management capabilities and identity protection, and that customers can benefit from improved regulatory compliance and data ownership by allowing them to maintain ownership of keys used to encrypt Google Workspace documents.

Many countries are developing strict data security regulations, such as GDPR and Schrems II in Europe, CCPA in NORAM and NDB in APAC, and Google says the regulatory landscape is becoming a lot more complex for organisations to navigate.

According to research from Garter, 74% of global organisations plan to keep part of their workforce remote after the pandemic, so there's an increasing need for a solution that can work and adapt to the regulatory framework wherever they may operate. 
 
Using Thales CipherTrust Manager and SafeNet Trusted Access, Google Workspace client-side encryption allows users to encrypt files and folders in Google Drive, including Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, using keys that are controlled internally by the organisation.

"By offering both independent key management and identity protection through an external IDP, Thales supports cloud security best practices which call for separating these vital security functions from the data they are designed to protect," says Thales senior vice president of cloud security and licensing, Sebastien Cano.
 
"Data sovereignty is becoming increasingly important, so organisations need a solution that can help them. With Google Workspace client-side encryption, customers hold control over their data encryption keys and have access to an encryption solution seamlessly.

"By providing Thales data security and identity protection capabilities through Google Workspace, this partnership expands the adoption and usage of one of the best collaboration tools on the market," he says.
 
Through this partnership, Thales provides tools for organisations to manage how their keys are used, the conditions they set for access, and manage an identity service for Workspace users. Organisations will be able to implement conditional access, enforce the appropriate level of authentication, and offer single sign-on for users logging onto Google Workspace.

Thales and Google Cloud will host a webinar to discuss best practices for protecting Google Workspace and how organisations can build a shared security model for protecting sensitive data in the cloud.