What’s changing

When a Google Workspace for Education admin chooses to enable Additional Services for students under the age of 18 to use, they acknowledge that they may be required to collect parental or guardian consent. This includes access to services like YouTube, Google Translate, Google Photos, Google Books, Google Earth and more.

In September 2024, we communicated that we now require admins who have Additional Services enabled for users under the age of 18 to re-review them on an annual basis. Admins are always in control of which services their users have access to, and this gives admins an opportunity to ensure the right users have access to the right services.

  • If admins do not want to provide access to Additional Services for their under 18 users, they can turn them off for those users. 
  • If admins want to keep Additional services enabled for under 18 users, they need to reconfirm parental consent in the admin console.  
  • If admins do not take action, under 18 users who previously had access to Additional Services will lose access in the coming weeks. Admins can re-enable access to Additional Services at any time. 

How admins can take action
Admins were first provided notice of this re-confirmation requirement in September 2024, which indicated a 6 months notice to complete the re-review process before the March 2025 rollout. The banner in the admin console has turned red to alert admins that action is required. While the rollout begins in March, it might take several weeks before some users in your organization are impacted.

You can easily view which applications require consent reconfirmation from Admin console > Apps > Additional Google services. You can re-confirm consent by checking the box next to the app, hovering over the app, or using the three-dot overflow menu. 

Experience for impacted end users
If users lose access to a specific service they’ll be notified “Your Google Workspace for Education account is designated as under 18 and your organization’s admin has not granted you access to this Additional Service. To regain access, inform your admin that you need this service to be enabled.“ 



Who’s impacted

Admins and end users under the age of 18


Why it’s important

Admins are in control of which services their users have access to, and to do so in alignment with both our terms of service and local laws and regulations that determine what services are appropriate for users under 18. Since admins manage which services their students have access to, only they can enable or disable access for their under 18 users. 


This is a guide to support admins with collecting consent from parents, which includes this template for communicating with parents and guardians around collecting consent. 

Additional details

The requirement to review and re-confirm access to Additional Products is an annual requirement customers must complete for their under 18 users, subject to their Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service. 

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

This change impacts Google Workspace:
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus

Resources