Access Transparency logs Google personnel access to your cloud resources during support and engineering cases, providing complete traceability for compliance requirements.
What is Access Transparency?
Access Transparency is a Google Cloud feature that provides transparency over access by Google employees to your cloud resources. Every support or engineering access with a documented business justification is logged and viewable.
Unlike Access Approval, which requires active approval, Access Transparency works passively. It does not block access but documents it completely. This is particularly valuable for compliance evidence and audit documentation, and it can be combined with Access Approval and Key Access Justifications.
Core Features
- Logging of Google employee access including affected resource, action, timestamp, and justification
- Information about the accessing employee (location, employing entity, job category)
- Integration with Cloud Audit Logs and SIEM systems for centralized analysis
- Immutable audit trails for compliance evidence
- No performance impact on your workloads
Typical Use Cases
Compliance Monitoring: Regulated industries such as financial services or healthcare require evidence of data access by the cloud provider. Access Transparency provides this documentation automatically.
Audit Preparation: During external audits, you can demonstrate Google access from recent months in a traceable way. The logs show exactly who accessed which resources, when, and why.
Zero-Trust Verification: Access Transparency enables verification that only expected, justified access actually occurs.
Benefits
- Transparency over third-party access without added day-to-day effort
- Automatic documentation for audits and compliance reports
- No impact on the speed of support processes
- Export to external SIEM systems possible
Integration with innFactory
As a certified Google Cloud partner, innFactory supports you with Access Transparency: activation and configuration, integration with SIEM systems, compliance reporting, and preparation for external audits.
Contact us for consultation on Access Transparency and Google Cloud security.
Available Tiers & Options
Standard, Enhanced, and Premium Support
- Full transparency over Google access
- Audit trail for compliance
- No performance impact
- Integration with Cloud Audit Logs
- Requires at least Standard Support (paid)
- Passive observation only, no blocking
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Access Transparency?
Access Transparency logs the actions Google personnel take when accessing your cloud data. Unlike Access Approval, which requires approval, Access Transparency passively documents access without blocking it. The logs show who accessed which resources, when, and for what reason.
Which accesses are logged?
Access Transparency captures access by Google employees during support and engineering cases with a documented business justification, such as troubleshooting or handling support requests. Normal API calls from your own applications are already captured in regular Cloud Audit Logs.
How does Access Transparency differ from Access Approval?
Access Transparency is passive and only documents access without blocking it. Access Approval requires active approval before each relevant access. Both features are available starting with Standard Support and can be combined for maximum control.
What information do the logs contain?
The logs include the affected resource and action, the time of the action, the reason for the action, and information about the accessing Google employee such as location, employing entity, and job category. These details enable complete traceability for audits and compliance evidence.
Which support plan do I need for Access Transparency?
Access Transparency can be enabled with Standard, Enhanced, or Premium Support; it is not available on the free Basic Support tier. Details on support plans are available on the official Google Cloud support page.
Is Access Transparency suitable for GDPR compliance?
Yes, Access Transparency supports GDPR compliance through documented traceability of third-party access. The logs can serve as evidence for Art. 28 GDPR, which requires transparency with data processors.
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.
