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| KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR SCHOOL ADMINS |
▪️Efficient Drive file sharing is key to successful learning and school operations in educational institutions using the Google Workspace environment. ▪️Only tight yet adequate file sharing access permissions ensure secure collaboration and school compliance with data privacy acts. Auditing and adjusting them should be a recurrent admin task. ▪️ At schools, a common security challenge is sharing sensitive files with unauthorized people by mistake. GAT Labs helps admins detect such events quickly and remove excessive access from unapproved users. |
Google Drive is fundamental for effective collaboration between students, teachers, parents, and school staff. It makes it much easier to share educational resources, student assignment documents, and personal records.
However, as the number of users and files grows, they demand more careful management to keep everyone and everything safe.
That’s why relying on comprehensive domain management tools and best practices for Drive file sharing is essential.
With them in place, school admins ensure an effective Google Workspace environment where everyone has proper access to specific files and can quickly identify and patch security gaps.
In this post, we share three real-world cases related to Drive file sharing at school and how to address them with GAT Labs tools. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
What Drive File Sharing Settings to Choose to Stay Compliant
To ensure COPPA and FERPA compliance, US-based schools need to closely monitor how they process sensitive data, particularly that related to minor students.
One crucial area every user can manage on their own and that admins need to control is file-sharing permissions. Applying the right settings protects personal information stored in Google Drive while allowing access to resources necessary for learning, teaching, and internal operations.
| Access Level | What Does it Mean | Security Level | Recommended Type of Files (Examples) |
| Restricted for Specific Internal Users | Only people in the school’s domain with access can open the file using the link. | High | Personal student information (PII), health records, individual learning and behavior evaluations, HR data, security overview |
| Shared to External Users with Link | Only external people with access can open the file using the link | Medium | Contractor information, internal feedback for potential stakeholders, parent-teacher communication |
| Shared with Users in the Domain (with Link) | Anyone in the school’s domain (with the link) can view the file | Medium | School-wide forms and announcements, internal meeting notes |
| Open to Public (with Link) | Anyone on the Internet (with the link) can view the file | Low | Public newsletters, school calendars, lunch menus, district-wide competitions |
Google Admin Tip: With GAT+, you can quickly audit your current shared files status and modify a file’s access permission if needed. Instead of checking each file separately, you’ll see an overview of the number of files:
- Open to public
- Open to public with link
- Your files shared outside
- External files shared in (the unique GAT’s feature)
- Open to specific external users
- Open to specific internal users
- And more.
3 Real-Life Scenarios on Drive File Sharing & GAT Labs Solutions for School Admins
Our educational customers handle large numbers of sensitive data daily and often face challenges posed by excessive file sharing.
Hopefully, they have access to tools that help them quickly mitigate potential data privacy risks. Detailed audits, scheduled reports, and automated user permission management address most of their concerns about student data protection and compliance.
How to prevent inadvertent data leakage due to sending the wrong attachments?
School Use Case: Our school staff accidentally added the incorrect attachments to emails to students and parents several times. Instead of a PDF flyer, they sent them a spreadsheet with personal information. According to our current DLP policy, once an email has been received, there is no way to block access to an attachment.
Our Solution: Use only Google Drive to share files across the school.
Encourage the use of Google Drive as the only method of sharing files instead of sharing them locally. If it’s not a common practice yet, you might need to train the school staff on it. Using Google Drive must be easy and quick for everyone; otherwise, they will choose another, less safe way to share files, such as local attachments.
Requiring the use of only Google Drive to share files will secure data processed by your institution and allow you to monitor file access and manage it efficiently.
For stricter file security control, you can be automatically alerted by GAT Shield when a staff member tries to upload a local file to Gmail, or block some users or the whole staff OUs from uploading a spreadsheet to an email completely.
How to monitor PII sharing externally to prevent unauthorized exposure of student data?
School Use Case: Our school often needs to share PII with third-party partners, such as freelance educators or medical services contractors. After sending personal data, we often lose track of these files and who could access them.
Our Solution: Audit external Drive file shares regularly with automated reports.
As the first step to ensure file security, your school should rely on Google Drive shares rather than local file sharing. It allows you to track the sensitive data lifecycle, identify potential risks, and take action to prevent the disclosure of personal information stored in your Google Workspace environment.
With GAT+ reports, Google admins can constantly monitor external file sharing activity and who was involved in specific actions.
They can also schedule automated alerts that will notify you of unusual Drive activity related ot external shares or newly shared files that contain sensitive data patterns, such as SSNs or health records. This automated, time-saving audit feature is particularly useful for large educational domains with thousands of users and files.
How to identify and limit internal emails that share sensitive files?
School Use Case: As a school with 4,000 staff members, it happens that they send an email in error to the wrong person. Until they realize the mistake, sensitive data can be shared and accessed by unauthorized people.
Our Solution: Restrict user permissions to Shared Drives and remove excessive file shares.
Start by organizing your staff members efficiently. Assign them to specific OUs with specific permissions to Shared Drives to reduce further file-sharing errors and protect school data.
To automate this process when a new staff member joins the school team, build an automated onboarding workflow in GAT Flow. This will ensure the new user has access only to the relevant Drives, folders, and files when their account is created or added to the specific team (i.e., the teachers’ OU).
Review current user access levels and adjust them following the Principle of the Least Privilege. With GAT+, you can easily check current file permissions and ownerships and change them for each user. For bulk modifications, rely on GAT Flow’s automation.
These measures should help avoid excessive internal exposure of sensitive files. However, if you detect such an event (for example, with GAT+ alert rules), you can proactively revoke the file’s share on a specific user’s behalf.
Maximize Your Drive File Protection This School Year
File sharing management isn’t a static, one-day task. It’s an ongoing process that impacts the entire school’s data security.
While the first step is auditing your current file permissions and reducing excessive access levels, you need to stay on top of all shared files at all times. Otherwise, you might miss out on internal or external data leaks, compliance risks, or even a gateway for ransomware attackers.
GAT Labs gives schools complete visibility into file sharing, continuous domain monitoring, and automated reports on any unusual changes. That means proactive, high-level security and tight student personal data protection.
It can also be your Google Workspace reality this school year. Book a personalized demo to learn more about GAT Suite for Education.
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