What Glass can access and what teammates can see

Overview

Early Access. For access information, see Request access to Glass.

Glass can use connected accounts to help with your work. What Glass can retrieve from a connected app is separate from who can read a chat or file in Glass. This article explains those access and sharing boundaries, not how long data is retained or when it is deleted; see Glass overview and access for an introduction to Glass.

Glass access to connected apps

For connected apps, Glass uses the permissions of the connected account. Your company's plugin settings and the account's Glass access grants can limit that access further. A connection does not give Glass unrestricted access to everything in the source app.

Permission controls differ by plugin. Some support read-only access or access to selected resources; others do not offer the same controls. Read the access request before approving it, including whether Glass can make changes. Do not assume that a request to read information means the connection is technically restricted to reading.

Personal and company accounts in Glass

Personal accounts are connections owned by you. They can also be made available to a project, so personal ownership does not mean the account can only be used in your personal chats. Review your connections in your Glass plugin settings.

Company accounts are set up for shared use. Anyone in your company who uses Glass can use the access available through an enabled company account, subject to company plugin settings. That access comes from the company account, not each teammate's individual account in the source app. Company-account setup is managed by a Glass admin in organization plugin settings.

Giving a project access to your account lets Glass use it across that project's chats, within the granted permissions. People who can send messages in those chats can ask Glass to use that access. Consider this before making sensitive accounts available to a shared project.

Account access can be added through an approval or an automatic grant. For example, an active personal connection can receive automatic access in a project set to Only people invited where you are the only member, no team has access, and no Slack channel is linked. Do not assume every project account was added through a separate approval prompt.

Before expanding a project's audience, review its plugin access and any account-sharing choices shown during sharing. Do not rely on a new prompt appearing every time you add someone or link a Slack channel.

Who can read Glass chats and files

Teammates do not automatically get access to every chat because they work at the same company. Chat access depends on both project access and the chat's sharing permissions. An Everyone project is readable within your company, but that does not make every restricted chat in it readable.

Project context can include information derived from chats that a teammate cannot open; see Glass project access boundaries before sharing sensitive information.

Files saved in a project's library follow project access. A saved project file is not restricted to the audience of the chat that created it. Glass can use saved files as context, separately from retrieving information through a connected account.

Someone who can read a shared answer or saved file may not have direct access to its original source. Check who can access the Glass project before sharing sensitive source content.

Removing Glass account access

Revoke project access removes that project's ability to use the selected account, without disconnecting the account or removing its access in other projects. You must be able to edit the project, own the account, and have originally added its access. If you cannot revoke it, ask the account owner who shared it.

Disconnecting an account is a different action. You can disconnect personal connections in your Glass plugin settings; a Glass admin manages company accounts in organization plugin settings.

Disconnecting in Glass is not a guarantee that the provider has revoked its authorization. To revoke provider-side access, review the connected app's own authorization settings. Neither disconnecting nor revoking project access is confirmation that existing Glass chats or saved files have been deleted.

Frequently asked questions

Does Glass ask for approval before every change in a connected app?

No. Account-access approval and approval for an individual action are different. Whether an action needs a new approval depends on the plugin, the action, and existing permissions or approval settings. Do not treat an access grant as a promise of a separate confirmation before every change.

Does retrieving information on demand mean Glass does not store it?

No; on-demand retrieval is not a no-storage guarantee, and saved project files and context have their own access boundaries.