Posted by Andy Wen, Group Product Manager

Google API platforms have a long history of enabling a vibrant and secure third-party app ecosystem for developers—from the original launch of OAuth which helped users safeguard passwords, to providing fine-grained data-sharing controls for APIs, to launching controls to help G Suite admins manage app access in the workplace.

In 2018, we launched Gmail Add-ons, a new way for developers to integrate their apps into Gmail across platforms. Gmail Add-ons also offer a stronger security model for users because email data is only shared with the developer when a user takes action.

We've continually strengthened these controls and policies over the years based on user feedback. While the controls that are in place give people peace-of-mind and have worked well, today, we're introducing even stronger controls and policies to give our users the confidence they need to keep their data safe.

To provide additional assurances for users, today we are announcing new policies, focused on Gmail APIs, which will go into effect January 15, 2019. We are publishing these changes in advance to provide time for developers who may need to adjust their apps or policies to comply.

Of course, we encourage developers to migrate to Add-ons where possible as their preferred platform for the best privacy and security for users (developers also get the added bonus of listing their apps in the G Suite Marketplace to reach five million G Suite businesses). Let's review the policy updates:

Policies

To better ensure that user expectations align with developer uses, the following policies will apply to apps accessing user data from consumer Google accounts (Note: as always, G Suite admins have the ability to control access to their users' applications. Read more.).

Appropriate Access: Only permitted Application Types may access these APIs.

Users typically directly interact with their email through email clients and productivity tools. Users allowing applications to access their email without their regular direct interaction (for example, services that provide reporting or monitoring to users) will be provided with additional warnings and we will require them to regrant access at regular intervals.

How Data May Not Be Used: 3rd-party apps accessing these APIs must use the data to provide user-facing features and may not transfer or sell the data for other purposes such as targeting ads, market research, email campaign tracking, and other unrelated purposes. (Note: Gmail users' email content is not used for ads personalization.)

As an example, consolidating data from a user's email for their direct benefit, such as expense tracking, is a permitted use case. Consolidating the expense data for market research that benefits a third party is not permitted.

We have also clarified that human review of email data must be strictly limited.

How Data Must Be Secured: It is critical that 3rd-party apps handling Gmail data meet minimum security standards to minimize the risk of data breach. Apps will be asked to demonstrate secure data handling with assessments that include: application penetration testing, external network penetration testing, account deletion verification, reviews of incident response plans, vulnerability disclosure programs, and information security policies.

Applications that only store user data on end-user devices will not need to complete the full assessment but will need to be verified as non-malicious software. More information about the assessment will be posted here in January 2019. Existing Applications (as of this publication date) will have until the end of 2019 to complete the assessment.

Accessing Only Information You Need: During application review, we will be tightening compliance with our existing policy on limiting API access to only the information necessary to implement your application. For example, if your app does not need full or read access and only requires send capability, we require you to request narrower scopes so the app can only access data needed for its features.

Additional developer help documentation will be posted in November 2018 so that developers can assess the impact to their app and begin planning for any necessary changes.

Application Review

All apps accessing the restricted scopes will be required to submit an application review starting on January 15, 2019. If a review is not submitted by February 15, 2019, then new grants from Google consumer accounts will be disabled after February 22, 2019 and any existing grants will be revoked after March 31, 2019.

Application reviews will be submitted from the Google API Console. To ensure related communication is received, we encourage developers to update project roles (learn more) so that email addresses or an email group is up-to-date.

For more details about the restricted scope app verification, please visit this FAQ.