Productivity

Google Adds Security Features to G Suite for Education, Launches Enterprise EDU Edition

• By David Nagel
• 01/23/18

Google today took the wraps off new security features for its education productivity suite, G Suite for Education, which includes Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides and a range of other tools. The new features come at no extra charge for education users. (G Suite for Education is free.) The company also launched G Suite Enterprise for Education.

The new security features include:

• Security key management and enforcement, requiring a physical key for user accounts and data;
• Data loss prevention for Drive and Gmail; and
• Hosted Gmail S/MIME, which allows schools to "digitally sign and encrypt e-mails."

G Suite Enterprise for Education was also announced today. It offers functionality similar to that of G Suite Enterprise for Business, but with a focus on large educational institutions, including colleges and universities and K–12 school districts.

Some of those stand-out features of the Enterprise edition include:

• Security analytics and other security-related tools;
• Device management for BYOD environments;
• Support for up to 50 participants in Hangouts;
• The ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive, plus the ability to dial into meetings; and
• BigQuery for Gmail logs.

Further details can be found on Google's G Suite for Education portal.

About the Author

David Nagel is editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Technology Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal and STEAM Universe. A 25-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.

He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at or follow him on Twitter at @THEJournalDave (K-12) or @CampusTechDave (higher education).