Google committed to new features that strengthen user privacy, says top official

Tech giant Google continues to focus on bringing in new features to empower users "to remain in control of their online experience" amid rising concerns globally around privacy and security of user data.

The company also emphasised that privacy should not be a luxury and that users across the world should be able to enjoy the same levels of privacy.

"Google has doubled down on our commitment to provide best-in-class privacy settings and controls across all of our products and services.

"We've made significant investments in getting this right...ensure that our products are continuing to innovate and reflect new and improved features to empower users to remain in control of their online experience," Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright told reporters over a video call.

He added that some of the steps include providing one-tap access to Google account across major products and services, and extending incognito mode to products like search and maps.

"We think that all of our users across all of our free and paid services all around the world enjoy the same measure of privacy, best-in-class privacy that Google is committed to delivering consistently," he noted.

He said the company recognises that it has an "obligation" to ensure that the strongest possible policies and procedures governing access to data and sharing of data with third-party developers, are in place.

In view of that, Google is now making additional changes for Chrome extension developers to ensure protection of users' privacy.

Extension developers can now request access to only that data which they need to implement their features. Google is also urging more extension developers to post their privacy policies.

Besides, it is also bringing in changes as to how third-party developers can use the Google Drive API (application programming interface) to provide their users access to files there. These efforts are part of Project Strobe through which Google is working on how third-party developers access user data.