Google Docs Security Tips
Google Docs are great tools for collaborating with coworkers and colleagues, but can create some undesirable situations if sensitive information is inadvertently shared in an inappropriate manner. You may wish to limit sharing options for your entire domain to reduce these situations. To do so, you’ll need to visit the G Suite Control Panel.
To access the control panel (note you’ll need domain super administrator rights), click the gear icon in your Gmail inbox and then select ‘Manage this domain.’ The select the ‘Settings’ tab and choose ‘Drive and Docs.’ Under ‘Sharing options’ you can choose the settings that best suit your domain’s needs.
Exploring Sharing Settings
If you do not wish to limit sharing across the domain, you should educate users on the different sharing options to make sure they are selecting the appropriate settings.
Private
A document shared privately is only accessible by the documents owner or creator and others cannot search for the item.
With the domain
A document shared within the domain can be found by anyone in the domain through search.
Within the domain with a link
A document shared within the domain with a link only allows users with the document’s link to access the document.
Anyone with the link
Sharing a document to anyone with the link will allow anyone who has been given the document’s link the ability to access and view the document.
Public on the web
A document shared publicly on the web means anyone can find (through search), access and read the item. This of course is the least secure sharing setting.
More Granular Google Docs Security Tools
If you want to restrict document sharing settings for a certain user or group of users, you’ll need a third-party cloud security tool like BetterCloud.