Improving the Advanced Protection Program for iOS users

Last October, Google launched the Advanced Protection Program, our strongest level of account security, designed to protect the overlooked segment of our users who face an increased risk of sophisticated attacks. These users may be journalists, activists, business leaders, political campaign teams, and others who feel especially vulnerable.

Today we’re announcing that Advanced Protection now supports Apple’s native applications on iOS devices, including Apple Mail, Calendar, and Contacts. This allows iOS users to enroll in the program without having to adjust how they use Google services on their Apple devices.

To protect you from accidentally sharing your most sensitive data with fraudulent apps or web services, Advanced Protection places automatic limits on which apps can gain access to your Google data. Before today, this meant that only Google applications were able to access your data if you were enrolled in the program.

With today’s update, you can now choose to allow Apple’s native iOS applications to access your Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts data. When you sign into iOS native applications with your Google account, you will get instructions on how to complete the sign-in process if you’re enrolled in Advanced Protection. We’ll continue to expand the list of trusted applications that can access Google data in the future. 

Layers of security protections

In addition to these updates, you’ll continue to benefit from Advanced Protection’s other safeguards. To provide you with the strongest defense against phishing, Advanced Protection goes further than traditional 2-Step Verification, requiring you to use a physical Security Key to sign back into your account after you’ve logged out, or anytime you sign in on a new device. Advanced Protection also helps block fraudulent access to your account by adding extra steps to the account recovery process to prevent people from impersonating you and pretending they’ve been locked out of your account.

Our goal is to make sure that any user facing an increased risk of online attacks enrolls in the Advanced Protection Program. Today, we’ve made it easier for our iOS users to be in the program, and we’ll continue our work to make the program more easily accessible to users around the globe. Get started at google.com/advancedprotection.