​Google has began rolling out a brand new end-to-end encryption (E2EE) mannequin for Gmail enterprise customers, making it simpler to ship encrypted emails to any recipient.
Whereas companies even have the choice to configure the Safe/Multipurpose Web Mail Extensions (S/MIME) protocol to ship digitally signed and encrypted messages, this requires important assets, together with deploying certificates to all customers and exchanging them earlier than sending the emails.
Google says that after Gmail’s new E2EE mannequin rolls out, enterprise customers will be capable to ship totally encrypted emails to any consumer on any e-mail service or platform with out having to fret about complicated certificates necessities.
“This functionality, requiring minimal efforts for each IT groups and finish customers, abstracts away the normal IT complexity and substandard consumer experiences of current options, whereas preserving enhanced information sovereignty, privateness, and safety controls,” Google stated as we speak.
“We’re rolling this out in a phased strategy, beginning as we speak, in beta, with the flexibility to ship E2EE emails to Gmail customers in your individual group. Within the coming weeks, customers will be capable to ship E2EE emails to any Gmail inbox, and, later this yr, to any e-mail inbox.”

​To ship a brand new encrypted e-mail, Gmail customers solely must activate the “Extra encription” choice when writing the message. The e-mail will likely be routinely decrypted when the recipient is a Gmail consumer with an enterprise or private account.
Recipients utilizing Google’s Gmail cellular app or non-Gmail e-mail purchasers will obtain a hyperlink to register and examine the e-mail in a restricted model of Gmail. The recipient can then use a visitor Google Workspace account to view and reply to the encrypted message.
Nonetheless, when the recipient has S/MIME configured on their account, Gmail will routinely ship an E2EE e-mail by way of S/MIME (simply because it does as we speak).
Gmail’s new E2EE functionality is powered by the client-side encryption (CSE) Workspace technical management that allows organizations to make use of encryption keys saved outdoors Google’s servers and underneath their management to guard delicate emails and paperwork,
This ensures that each one transmitted information is encrypted on the shopper earlier than being despatched to Google’s cloud-based storage, which helps meet regulatory necessities, corresponding to information sovereignty, HIPAA, and export controls, by rendering it indecipherable to Google and third-party entities.
Gmail CSE has been out there for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Training Plus, and Training Customary clients since February 2023, and was launched in Gmail on the internet as a beta check in December 2022 after an preliminary rollout to Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Meet, and Google Calendar (in beta).