From Forbes: On Friday, 18 December, Google announced that client-side encryption for Gmail was now available in a beta-testing format. Which is great news, but the majority of its 1.8 billion users are likely to be disappointed. The clue is where that announcement was made: the Google Workspace official updates feed.
Who can use the new Gmail encryption feature?
You can only apply to sign up for the email encryption beta if you are a user of Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus or Education Standard. All other types of Google Workspace accounts are not eligible to get client-side encryption, according to the Google posting. Nor, sadly, are users of personal Gmail accounts. The Gmail client-side encryption (CSE) feature will also only work with web browsers, like most of the other Google Workspace services that are CSE-enabled.
There is no indication when or even if the eligibility criteria will change.
Is Gmail getting end-to-end encryption?
It's also important to note that the Google statement doesn't once mention end-to-end encryption (E2EE) but, rather, refers to client-side encryption. A Google Workspace help page states that this means "content encryption is handled in the client's browser before any data is transmitted or stored in Google's cloud-based storage." This is not the same thing as most people think of as end-to-end encryption, where the encryption/decryption keys are only known to the sender and recipient. With the Google implementation, the client-side decryption keys are created by a cloud-based key management service, with a choice of six partner organizations at the moment.
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