Trust and transparency are the key themes of Privacy Awareness Week this year, which falls in the same week as Consumer Fraud Awareness Week. At Google, we place a huge value in being upfront and transparent with our users, and talking about privacy in clear language that everyone can understand.
But we know that there is no one size fits all approach to protecting user privacy. Now more than ever, privacy means different things to different people and we want to help our users get comfortable with their relationship with Google. Key to this level of comfort are the concepts of trust and transparency.
Our goal is to empower users through the information we give them so that they can make informed decisions about their relationship with Google. In 2015, we introduced a new site at privacy.google.com that answers some of the biggest questions, like: what data does Google collect? And What does Google do with the data it collects?
We also made users’ settings easier to find, understand, and manage—putting it all together in one place called My Account.
We continue to innovate on and improve user’s access to and control over their account data. For example, we are giving users unprecedented transparency through My Activity where you can see and manage the information used by Google services. By being open and transparent about Google’s data collection and use policies and by giving control to our users over how their data is used, our hope is that our users trust us more. It’s as simple as that.
But we are also strongly invested in creating safer digital environments where vulnerable members of the community are less likely to fall victim to scams. We have a dedicated help page that identifies all of the scams purporting to be from Google.
We also make the web safer from phishing and malware every day with our Safe Browsing warnings in Chrome. Each day we find more than 7,500 unsafe sites, so when you use Google Search, or surf across to an unsafe page using your Chrome browser, we’ll display a warning and encourage you to go elsewhere. We also provide this intel to the Stop Badware coalition, so other service providers can make the web safer, too.
There are also some things you can do to help us keep your data safe and secure. For example, we recommend you take a quick Security Check-Up this week to review your current Google account settings. You can also visit the Google Safety Centre for more advice about being safe online.
You’ll see a lot of activity this week promoting trust and transparency as part of #PAW2017 and raising awareness of online scams through #FraudWeek2017. This serves as a strong reminder of how important it is to review your privacy and security settings on the services you use. Rest assured that Google is committed to these issues and making our services trustworthy and robust every single week of the year.