Is Google Drive your preferred means of cloud storage, or are you part of a team that uses the platform? Make sure you read this to end, else you will find out by the middle of September that a lot of the old Google Drive links you shared may no longer be accessible.
The Tech giant has announced through its Workspace platform that it is launching a security update which will apply to some Drive files. The whole essence is to make sharing files on Google Drive files to be more secure.
“The update,” said Google, “will add a resource key to sharing links. Once the update has been applied to a file, users who haven’t viewed the file before will have to use a URL containing the resource key to gain access, and those who have viewed the file before or have direct access will not need the resource key to access the file.”
Google plans to go live with the update on September 13th. Before that time, users who have viewed the old links already distributed in the workplace or online can continue accessing it. However, those who haven’t will need the resource key to access the file. Drive will add a resource key to links generated for sharing.
In the news shared, Workspace admins will have a deadline of July 23rd to decide how the security update will be applied to their organisation. They can either choose to apply it with limitations or to opt out altogether.
Meanwhile, personal users will get a notification about the change starting on July 26th and will have until September 13th to decide. They can also choose not to apply the update, however, Google has made it clear in its notice that the option is not recommended. The Tech giant suggests not applying the update only to files posted publicly.
Added to this, Google will roll out updates for YouTube also, that could break a bunch of older links. YouTube has a security measure that makes links to unlisted videos hard to find for people they weren’t shared with, but it didn’t come out until 2017. Starting on July 23rd, all unlisted videos uploaded before 2017 will be made private unless users opt out.
