Privacy Notice for Google Accounts Managed with Family Link, for Children under 13 (or applicable age in your country) (“Privacy Notice”)

We know it’s important for you to understand what personal information we collect in association with your child’s Google Account, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete that information. This Privacy Notice and the Google Privacy Policy explain our privacy practices for your child’s Google Account. To the extent there are terms that conflict, such as with respect to limitations on personalized advertising, this Privacy Notice controls.

This Privacy Notice does not apply to the practices of any third party (non-Google) apps, actions or websites that your child may use. You should review the applicable terms and policies for third party apps, actions, and sites to determine their appropriateness for your child, including their data collection and use practices.

Information We Collect

The Google Privacy Policy sets forth our information collection practices. For example, we collect:

Information you and your child create or provide to us.

As part of the account creation process, we ask for personal information like first and last name, email address, and birthdate.  We collect the content your child provides, such as your online contact information, which is necessary for us to contact you to request consent.  We also collect the information your child creates, uploads, or receives from others when using their account, such as when your child saves a picture in Google Photos or creates a document in Google Drive.

Information we get from your child’s use of our services.

We automatically collect and store certain information about the services your child uses and how your child uses them, like when your child enters a query in Google Search, talks to the Google Assistant, or watches a video on YouTube Kids. This information includes:

  • Your child’s apps, browsers & devices

We collect information about the apps, browsers, and devices your child uses to access Google services, including unique identifiers, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, and application version number. We also collect information about the interaction of your child’s apps, browsers, and devices with our services, including IP address, crash reports, system activity, and the date, time, and referrer URL of your child’s request. We collect this information when a Google service on your child’s device contacts our servers, for example, when they install an app from the Play Store.

  • Your child’s activity

We collect information about your child’s activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend apps they might like on Google Play. Your child’s activity information that we collect may include things like search terms, videos they watch, voice and audio information when they use audio features, people with whom they communicate or share content, and Chrome browsing history they’ve synced with their Google Account. If your child uses our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, for example by using Google Hangouts, we may collect telephony log information like their phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information, and types of calls. Your child can visit their Google Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in their account and you can also manage their activity information by signing in to your child’s Google Account.

  • Your child’s location information

We collect information about your child’s location when they use our services. Your child’s location can be determined by using GPS, IP address, sensor data from their device, and information about things near their device, such as Wi-Fi access points, cell towers, and Bluetooth-enabled devices. The types of location data we collect depends in part on your child’s device and account settings. 

  • Your child’s voice & audio information                                                                                                                                     

We may collect your child’s voice and audio information. For example, if your child uses audio activation commands (e.g., “OK, Google” or touching the microphone icon), a recording of the following speech/audio, plus a few seconds before, will be stored to their account from any of your child’s signed-in devices, when the Voice & Audio Activity setting is enabled.

We use various technologies to collect and store your child’s information, including cookies, pixel tags, local storage, such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases, and server logs.  We do not require your child to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary to use the Google products and services available for these accounts.

How We Use Information We Collect

Google’s Privacy Policy explains in greater detail the purposes for which Google collects data in association with your child’s Google Account. In general, we use your child’s information: to provide, maintain, and improve our services; to develop new  services; to customize our services for your child; to measure performance and understand how our services are used; to communicate directly with your child in relation to our services; and to help improve the safety and reliability of our services.

 

We use different technologies to process your child’s information for these purposes. We use automated systems that analyze your child’s content to provide them with things like customized search results or other features tailored to how they use our services. And we analyze your child’s content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognize patterns in data. When we detect spam, malware, illegal content, and other forms of abuse on our systems in violation of our policies, we may disable their account or take other appropriate action. In certain circumstances, we may also report the violation to appropriate authorities.

 

We may use your child’s information to provide recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results. For example, depending on your child’s settings, Google Play may use information like apps your child has installed to suggest new apps they might like.

 

In addition, we may combine the information we collect among our services and across your child’s devices for the purposes described above. Depending on your child’s account settings, their activity on other sites and apps may be associated with their personal information in order to improve Google’s services.

 

Google will not serve personalized ads to your child, which means ads will not be based on information from your child’s account. Instead, ads may be based on information like the content of the website or app your child is viewing, the current search query, or general location (such as city or state). When browsing the web or using non-Google apps, your child may encounter ads served by other (non-Google) ad providers, including ads personalized by third parties.

Information Your Child Can Share

Your child will be able to share information, including photos, videos, audio, and location, publicly and with others, when signed in with their Google Account. When your child shares information publicly, it may be accessible through search engines like Google Search.

Information Google Shares

Information we collect may be shared outside of Google in limited circumstances. We do not share personal information with companies, organizations, and individuals outside of Google except in the following cases:

With consent
We will share personal information outside of Google with consent (as applicable).

With your family group

Your child’s information, including their name, photo, email address, and Play purchases, may be shared with members of your family group on Google.

For external processing

We provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Notice, the Google Privacy Policy, and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.



For legal reasons

We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

  • meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request;
  • enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations;
  • detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or
  • protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We may also share non-personally identifiable information (such as trends about the general use of our services) publicly and with our partners  — like publishers, advertisers, developers, or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from browsers or devices for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies.

If your child is signed into YouTube Kids with their Google Account, this Privacy Notice applies. If your child is not signed into YouTube Kids with their Google Account, the YouTube Kids Privacy Notice applies.

Access to Your Child’s Personal Information

If you created a new account for your child with Family Link, you can access, update, remove, and export your child’s information by signing into their Google Account. If you do not remember your child’s password, you can reset it through the Family Link app or Family Link settings on the web. Once signed in, you can use the various controls described in the Google Privacy Policy (such as Google activity controls) to manage your child’s privacy settings and information. If your child created their own account prior to the change of the minimum required age in your country, and you later granted permission for your child to keep their account, you will not have the ability to reset your child’s password or sign in to their account without their permission.  

By default, your child will have the ability to change their activity controls, delete their past activity in “My Activity,” and grant app permissions (including things like device location, microphone, or contacts) to third parties. However, you can limit your child’s ability to make these choices on Android without parental approval by going to Family Link settings (either in the app or on the web) and changing “Manage Google Activity” and “App Permissions” settings to “Only parents.”

You can also use the Family Link app or Family Link settings on the web to edit or modify your child’s Google Account information, review app activity and app permissions, and manage your child’s ability to grant certain permissions to apps to do things like access information from your child’s Android device (such as location, microphone, and contacts). You can also use Family Link to help manage your child’s access to certain features, apps, and services on Android, or change their Android permissions on devices running Android 6.0 and above.

If at any time you wish to stop further collection or use of your child's information, you can delete your child’s Google Account my clicking “Delete account” on your child’s Account Info page in Family Link or on the Family group page in My Account. Your child’s account information will be permanently deleted within a reasonable period of time.

When Your Child Can Manage Their Account on Their Own

When your child turns 13 (or the relevant age as determined by applicable law in your jurisdiction), they are eligible to manage their account on their own.  If your child chooses to manage their Google Account, you will no longer have access to, or be able to exercise control over their account, unless you and your child later choose to set up supervision again through Family Link. Before your child becomes eligible to manage their own Google Account, we will notify you and your child.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about your child’s Google Account, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to help. You can find additional information about Family Link and your child’s Google Account in our help center. You can also send us feedback about Family Link or your child’s Google Account in the Family Link app by tapping Menu ☰ > Help & Feedback > Send feedback, or by contacting us by email or at the address below.



Google
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Phone: +1 855 696 1131 (USA)
For other countries, visit g.co/ContactFamilyLinkHelp

If you have questions about how Google collects and uses your child’s data, you can contact Google and our data protection office. You can also contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns regarding your rights under local law.



View Family Link Disclosure for Children under 13 (or applicable age in your country)