All of our student's data is stored with Googel aps, and therefore, is protected by the advanced security measures offered by google.

Where is the data stored?
Data will be stored using Google's advanced worldwide data centers. There is no guarantee which data center will house the data. Google does this to ensure that we can best handle security, scalability, usage spikes, and redundancy.

Is data safe from other customers when it is running on the same servers?
Yes. Data is virtually protected as if it were on its own server. Your competitors cannot access your data, and vice versa. In fact, all user accounts are protected via this virtual lock and key that ensures that one user cannot see another user's data. This is similar to how customer data is segmented in other shared infrastructures such as online banking applications.

How are the data centers secured?
Locations of Google data centers are kept private and the buildings themselves are kept discrete for security. Access to data centers is very limited to only select Google employees and is controlled by strict measures at each facility.

How is the data and infrastructure protected against hackers and other threats?
Google, being one of the world's largest providers of web-based services has gone to great lengths to protect against threats.Google runs its data centers using custom hardware running a custom OS and filesystem.  Each of these systems has been optimized for security and performance. The Google Security Team is working with external parties to constantly test and enhance security infrastructure to ensure it is impervious to external attackers.  And because Google controls the entire stack running our systems, we are able to quickly respond to any threats or weaknesses that may emerge.

How are security flaws prevented and resolved in your applications?
Google products and services are required to go through security review as part of the launch process. If a security flaw is found in an application or infrastructure component, the security team is called on to resolve the issue. Because we are hosting the applications in our data centers, we can quickly deploy these fixes to all our systems without requiring any action on your part.

How is the data protected against machine failures or natural disaster?
The application and network architecture run by Google is designed for maximum reliability and uptime. Google's computing platform assumes ongoing hardware failure, and robust software fail-over withstands this disruption. All Google systems are inherently redundant by design, and each subsystem is not dependent on any particular physical or logical server for ongoing operation. Data is replicated multiple times across Google's clustered active servers, so, in the case of a machine failure, data will still be accessible through another system. We also replicate data to secondary data centers to ensure safety from data center failures.

Is it safe to access data over the internet?
All Google Apps services provide the ability to access all data using encryption and customers can choose to require this option for their users. This helps ensure that no one except the user has access to his or her data. This is true for access to our mail, calendar, and chat data via our web applications. The mobile email client also uses encrypted access to ensure the privacy of communications. We do not offer encryption on the Start Page service at this time. We also require encryption for access to your mail data by third party clients.

How is the data protected against spam, viruses and phishing attacks?
Google has one of the best spam blockers in the business, and it's integrated into Google Apps. Spam is purged every 30 days. We have built in virus checking, and we enforce checking of documents before allowing a user to download any message. Most computer viruses are contained in executable files, so standard virus detectors scan messages for executable files that appear to be viruses. Google blocks viruses in the most direct possible way: by not allowing users to receive executable files (such as files ending in .exe) that could contain damaging executable code; even if they are sent in a compressed (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format.