Access Approval provides explicit control over Google access to your cloud data during support and engineering cases. Every relevant access requires manual approval with full audit transparency.
What is Access Approval?
Access Approval is a Google Cloud feature that provides additional control over access by Google employees. By default, Google Customer Care or engineering can access your resources during technical issues to diagnose and resolve cases.
With Access Approval, this changes fundamentally. Every relevant access requires your explicit, cryptographically signed approval. You receive a notification with details about the requested access, the reason, affected resources, and duration. Without your consent, access remains blocked, and already granted approvals can be revoked at any time.
This is particularly relevant for regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, or public administration. GDPR and other compliance frameworks require documented control over data access by third parties. Access Approval meets these requirements in combination with Access Transparency logs and Key Access Justifications.
The feature is available to customers with Standard, Enhanced, or Premium Support; it cannot be used with the free Basic Support tier. Integration requires no code changes and has no impact on normal application workloads.
Core Features
- Explicit approval: No access by Google employees to customer data without your consent
- Cryptographically signed requests: Requests are signed and verifiable, using either Google-managed or customer-managed signing keys
- Revocation at any time: Already granted approvals can be withdrawn
- Configurable scope: Enable for all services, GA-only services, or individually selected services
- Integration with Access Transparency: Combine with transparency logs for complete traceability
- Notification via email or Pub/Sub: Flexible integration into existing alerting and ticketing systems
Typical Use Cases
- Regulated industries with strict requirements for access control (financial services, healthcare, public sector)
- GDPR compliance and demonstrating data sovereignty to regulators
- Zero-trust security models where every access must be explicitly authorized
- Internal audit and governance processes with complete logging of third-party access
Benefits
- Full control over when and why Google employees gain access to your data
- Traceable, cryptographically secured approval processes
- No additional licensing cost beyond the required support plan
- Granular configuration at project, folder, or organization level
- Complements Access Transparency and Key Access Justifications for a comprehensive control model
Integration with innFactory
As a certified Google Cloud partner, innFactory supports you in implementing Access Approval:
- Compliance Strategy: Design of approval workflows for GDPR and industry-specific requirements
- Policy Configuration: Setup of granular Access Approval policies at organization, folder, and project levels
- Audit Integration: Connecting Access Approval and Access Transparency logs to SIEM systems for centralized compliance reports
- Zero-Trust Architecture: Integration of Access Approval into comprehensive zero-trust security models
Contact us for consultation on Access Approval and Google Cloud security.
Available Tiers & Options
Standard, Enhanced, and Premium Support
- Explicit approval for access requests
- Audit trail via Access Transparency
- Time-limited and revocable access rights
- Cryptographically signed and verifiable requests
- Requires at least Standard Support (paid)
- Potential delay in support cases
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Access Approval?
Access Approval is a Google Cloud feature that requires explicit approval before Google support or engineering staff can access customer data. During a case requiring data access, you receive a notification via email or Pub/Sub and must manually approve access. This provides additional control and transparency, especially important for regulated industries and GDPR compliance.
Which accesses require approval?
Access Approval can be enabled for all Google Cloud services, only generally available (GA) services, or individually selected services. It applies exclusively to access by Google employees during support or engineering cases, not to your own applications' API calls.
How does the approval process work?
For a case requiring data access, you receive a cryptographically signed request containing the reason, affected resources, and duration. You can approve or deny the request via the Cloud Console or API, and revoke an already granted approval at any time. Without approval, Google does not gain access to the data.
Which support tiers do I need for Access Approval?
Access Approval is available to customers with Standard, Enhanced, or Premium Support; it cannot be used with the free Basic Support tier. Specific plan details are available on the official Google Cloud support pricing page.
Can I configure Access Approval granularly?
Yes, Access Approval can be enabled at project, folder, or organization level, and you can decide whether all services, only GA services, or individually selected services require approval. This lets you enforce stricter controls on production resources than on development environments.
How does Access Approval help with GDPR compliance?
Access Approval provides documented control over data access by third parties (Google support/engineering) and can be combined with Access Transparency logs and Key Access Justifications. Together with EU regions, this supports requirements around data sovereignty and traceability.
What does Access Approval cost?
Access Approval itself does not add extra cost, but requires at least a paid Standard Support plan. Details on support pricing are available on the official Google Cloud support page.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of Google Cloud (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by Google Cloud.
