Google Drive: What Not to Use it For

Google Drive is a wonderful tool for making files available no matter which device you're using. There are certain things you should not use it for, however. Here are three:

1. Backing up your computer. Our Google Drive storage is no longer unlimited. Therefore, we discourage using it to back up files. Use Code42 for that purpose. In addition, you may have files on your computer that contain the types of data we specifically cannot legally store in Drive. Two of the the most common ones of those are:

2. Storing files with Social Security Numbers. The university Data Use Policy specifically forbids storing any file that contains a SSN on Drive. 

3. Storing files with credit card numbers. The university Data Use Policy specifically forbids storing any file that contains PCI (payment card info) on Drive.

Google Workspace now provides us with tools that alert IS when files with either SSNs or PCI are uploaded. Please help us by not uploading files with that data to Drive.