...
Concordia University of Edmonton considers Google Apps to be an important piece of the IT services that we offer to faculty and staff. With respect to the security considerations, Google Apps should be treated very much like any other IT service. Concordia University of Edmonton retains ownership of the data and faculty and staff can feel confident using it. As with all IT services, however, faculty and staff must inform themselves of any legal and regulatory requirements of the sensitive information they handle and the particular requirements around retaining and storing it.
Privacy & Confidentiality
It must be understood, that standard e-mail is inherently non-confidential. That is, one should not expect that information revealed through e-mail will absolutely remain free from a broader disclosure. Regardless of whether the e-mail system is hosted on a system on-campus (in Exchange, for example) or on the Internet (with Google or elsewhere), there are four primary risks to email confidentiality:
...
Because of the above risks, one must be prudent in how they use e-mail and what information is disclosed through that medium.
Drive / Documents
Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) has its own privacy and confidentiality considerations. Broadly speaking, it should be treated like other file storage services available at Concordia University of Edmonton. That said, the barriers to inadvertent sharing of sensitive or privileged information are greatly removed. So there must be additional caution taken around the proper sharing and distributing of information. Be sure to regularly review the sharing settings of Google Drive files/documents.
Frequently Asked Questions
How safe is it to store Concordia University of Edmonton data (e-mail, online files, etc) with Google?
...