How The American International School Chennai Prevented 20+ Data Leaks in 2 Years with GAT Labs
About the School
American International School Chennai (AISC) is a K-12 school based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in South India.
AISC offers advanced courses like the International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, and American college programs. They also provide personalized learning paths that help students enter Korean, North American, and European universities. The School uses the Chrome browser and 1:1 devices for all grades. Grades 1-8 use iPads, and grades 9-12 follow the BYOD model.
AISC is the only American International school and one of the three American schools in India (besides Mumbai and New Delhi). The School benefits from the growth in manufacturing and engineering in Chennai, where the factories of various global automobile and tech companies are located.
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Serving 770 students and 221 staff
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About Greg Clinton, Director of IT
Greg grew up in Egypt, traveling globally with his family due to his parents’ work as international educators. His father, a former school head in Nepal, is now a college counselor in Shanghai. Greg has lived and worked in countries like Belgium, Japan, and Peru, and his family moved to India during COVID.
Since 2020, Greg has been in charge of the IT department at the school in Chennai. His broader responsibilities include designing professional development, data privacy, cybersecurity, providing advice on AI, data collection, and system building.
Challenges for AISC
AISC had been a Google Workspace client for over ten years when Dr. Greg Clinton took on the role of Director of Technologies and Research & Development in 2020. Despite the extensive groundwork laid, Greg recognized the need for more advanced and comprehensive visibility into Google Drive for his IT Department.
Acknowledging the high risk of data leaks in school domains, Greg and his team also prioritized addressing the critical issue of transferring Drive file ownership during the onboarding and offboarding processes for teachers and staff.
Why GAT Was a Perfect Fit for this School
When Greg found these issues, he decided to go with the simplest way to rectify them: the GAT toolset.
“GAT Labs is one of the few companies with not just good features but also good technical support. The website chat works every time and is the quickest way to get help or resolve any issues. ”
Then, the IT team discovered other features, such as automated alerts for Data Loss Prevention, which were very beneficial for the entire school community. They started auditing externally shared files that contained email addresses. This gave them a chance to not only solve the problem but also educate users on safe sharing practices. GAT’s auditing capabilities also help them raise awareness of data privacy in the school.
Exploring the Features of GAT Labs
The IT team has started using GAT features more frequently for different use cases. They found GAT+ very helpful for Drive auditing, granular control over ownership and permissions, and finding specific user data in the domain. In this case, the team realized that GAT+ is much more user-friendly and flexible than Google Vault.
The Compliance Use Case
India enacted its compliance law, the India Digital Personal Data Protection Act, which came into force in September 2024. GAT’s features enabled the IT team to audit its domain, detect vulnerabilities, and become compliant with this act.
“Using GAT+ to understand that process has been pretty useful, especially in safeguarding the domain and preventing data loss in a teacher transfer of their Drive. It was never visible before, but now we have much more visibility and can track it in detail.”
For AISC, the GAT+ Drive Audit tool is incredibly effective in helping AISC protect sensitive data across the organization. One of the key features they’ve implemented is a custom rule designed to detect student data privacy violations. This rule uses regex to identify when Google Drive files contain student email IDs and automatically triggers an alert to the IT Director.
“In addition to this, GAT+ provides broader insights with detailed device activities, user login locations, and one-click reports that make auditing fast and comprehensive. This level of automation and visibility has greatly enhanced our ability to monitor data security, prevent breaches, and respond to incidents quickly. It's an essential tool for ensuring the protection of our Google Workspace environment.”
How GAT Transformed this Chennai School’s Digital Environment
Before Greg took up his position, the IT team focused mainly on maintaining backups. Google Workspace just had to work, no matter how. Their Google domain was relatively safe and well-secured, but there were leaks at the edges because users were sharing school data, overexposing it externally. Greg took steps to audit and understand the system’s state and put together a great team of professionals.
Empowering the School IT Team
Greg relies on GAT’s features, like advanced auditing, file management, and ownership controls, to accomplish essential tasks that would otherwise have been impossible. As a result, it gives the IT team more power, increases their productivity, and saves time. It allows them to balance giving users control, keeping them safe, and preventing inappropriate data loss.
Greg admits that GAT Labs’ tools don’t require much support; they’re intuitive and easy to use. “Which IT professional has time to learn how to use Google Apps Manager well? GAT is the answer!” he says.
The School Future with GAT Labs
As privacy, security, and automation have become increasingly important priorities for schools, the GAT toolset can fit perfectly into their long-term strategy. Many international schools don’t have the luxury of having a large IT staff, so they need tools that can multiply the effect of one person.
What advice would Greg give to other schools considering GAT Labs?
“GAT does a massive number of things, and each of them is done very well. GAT solves a problem you’re struggling with now – and much more!”
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