Black Cat Security

Beginning today, client-side encryption for Gmail is now generally available for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers. For customers currently enrolled in the beta, your experience will not change. 

Workspace already encrypts data at rest and in transit by using secure-by-design cryptographic libraries. Client-side encryption takes existing encryption capabilities to the next level by ensuring that customers have sole control over their encryption keys—and thus complete control over access to their data.

For more information, read the latest Workspace blog and our original beta announcement.

• Admins: 
•  This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain, OU, and Group levels (Admin console > Security > Access and data control > Client-side encryption). 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up client-side encryption for your organization and Google Vault support for client-side encrypted emails. 
• End users: Once enabled by your Workspace admin, to add client-side encryption to any message, click the lock icon and select additional encryption, and compose your message and add attachments as normal. 

• Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Available now. 

• Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers 
• Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
• Not available to users with personal Google Accounts 

• Workspace Blog: Google Workspace expands data privacy controls to Gmail and Calendar with client-side encryption 
• Google Admin Help: About client-side encryption
• Google Admin Help: Gmail only: Set up your organization for client-side encryption
• Workspace Updates Blog: Google Vault support for client-side encrypted emails

To limit distractions during meetings, Google Meet offers noise cancellation to filter out background noises such as a closing door or the sounds of a nearby construction site. Beginning today, noise cancellation is: 

• Available for users with personal Google Accounts on a wider variety of Android mobile devices. 
• Available for Google Workspace Business Starter, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard customers. 
• Enabled by default for third-party devices that connect to Meet using Pexip 

Expanding this functionality helps make calls more productive by reducing distractions across a wider variety of devices. 

• Admins: 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning noise cancellation on or off by default.
• For Pexip users, noise cancellation is on by default — please refer to Pexip’s documentation for information on turning this feature off. 
• End users: 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning filtering out noise from your meeting on Google Meet.
• If you’re joining using a Workspace account, the meeting host's Workspace edition will determine the default state. You can turn the feature on or off from the settings menu. 
• If you’re joining a meeting on an Android device with your personal Google Account, noise cancellation is OFF by default. 

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 27, 2023 

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Turn noise cancellation on or off by default
• Google Help: Filter out noise from your meeting on Google Meet

As previously announced, we’re streamlining the way you organize conversations in Google Chat. Starting March 13, 2023, all newly created spaces in Google Chat will be in-line threaded. Users will no longer have the option to organize them by conversation topic, where related messages and replies were grouped together in the main conversation window. Existing spaces organized by conversation topic will continue to function as they do today. 

Later this year, existing spaces organized by conversation topic will be migrated to the new in-line threaded experience — we will provide more information on the Workspace Updates blog and via email to the primary admin in your domain ahead of this change.

Admins and end users 

Spaces in Google Chat can help you communicate with a group of people or an organization about a topic, project, or shared interest. We’ve heard from users that having two different options to organize their spaces can be confusing. To streamline the user experience and accelerate product development, we’re focusing on the model most users prefer: in-line threading. With in-line threading, you can reply to any message and create a separate discussion isolated from the main conversation. In-line threads can be helpful when you want to reply to a specific message or discuss a topic in-depth without disrupting the flow of the main conversation.

• Scan and understand what’s being discussed in the space 
• Browse all topics via the active thread navigation panel 
• Find and follow the most relevant topics and conversations

All spaces created on or after March 13, 2023, will be in-line threaded. Starting on that date, the option to “Organize the conversation by topic” will no longer be visible when users create a new space.

• Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about when to use & organize a space.
• End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Spaces, how to organize a space, and managing a space with in-line threading. 

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 13, 2023. 

• Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
• Not available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Since announcing the ability to share where you’re working from directly on Google Calendar, we’ve introduced features that enable better planning around in-person collaboration and meeting coordination, especially in a hybrid work environment. A few include: 

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.