Enabling Age-Based Services in Google Workspace for Education

Since 1 September 2021, there are a number of procedural changes that have taken place in terms of age restrictions on your Google Workspace for Education account, which will have caused all users in your organisation to default to under 18.

The exception to this is where a user has been created in an organisational unit with teachers and staff that you (or your ICT support provider) have already indicated as 18 and older via the age-based access setting in the Google Admin Console.

Additionally, if you have YouTube turned off as a service for a set of users, those users will no longer be able to access YouTube.com or YouTube apps with their Workspace for Education account.

If you just want us to do it for you, please go to the section entitled "Can you just do this for me?".

Age-based Access Setting

After 1 September 2021, any users within organisational units in your domain that you did not indicate as 18 and older will default to the under-18 account setting. Starting from this date, all users under 18 years old will begin to have a more restricted experience with their Workspace accounts when using Additional Google services.

Teachers and Staff: Starting today, Teachers and Staff in organisational units or groups that you did not indicate as 18 and older will begin to lose access to aspects of Additional Google services (e.g. teaching content created on YouTube) or lose access to some services entirely. Even if this happens, you can still indicate these users as 18 and older using the age-based access setting, reversing the age-based default setting. However, these users still may not be able to retrieve access to certain content (e.g. comments on any YouTube channels they own).
Under-18 user restrictions: Starting today, these users will begin to lose access to some Additional Google Services. See the list of restrictions and services that will no longer be available for users under 18.
Google Services without an individual on/off control: Starting today, Google services without an individual on/off control will be unavailable for users indicated as under 18.
Under-18 users’ data may be deleted for any additional service they have lost access to: After 1 September 2021, data that your users have lost access to may be deleted. Learn more about all the restrictions and services that will no longer be available for users under 18. Services may also contact end-users directly regarding changes in their access to the service.

Turning YouTube Off

Starting1 September 2021, if you have set YouTube to "Off" in the Admin Console for your organisation, a Group or an Organisational Unit (OU), no user of any age in that Group or OU will be able to access YouTube.com or YouTube apps when signed in with their Workspace for Education account.

Users that have YouTube set to “Off” will still be able to view embedded YouTube videos assigned in Workspace for Education products (including Classroom). And all users can continue to link and preview videos in Docs.
If teachers in your organisation rely on sharing YouTube videos in Classroom and other Workspace products like Slides or Forms, you should enable the YouTube service for those teachers so they can continue to embed videos. Learn more on how to turn YouTube on/off for users.

What do I need to do?

Can you just do this for me?

Absolutely! All you need to do is enter your email address below and request an automated email from us. If you don't receive this email in a few minutes, please check your spam folder. The email will contain a personalised link that will verify you have the authority to provide the approval to us. If you already have a support contract (or an ad-hoc support relationship) with Entity, the rest of the process will be mostly automatic. If you don't yet have a support contract with us, we'll be in touch as soon as possible to move on to the next stage in the process.

Age-Based Access Setting

You can watch this video to help you set the age-based access setting.

How to set age-based access settings for users:

Go to the Admin Console.
Under “Accounts” > “Account Settings”, go to the "Age-based access” setting.
For each organisational unit or group on the left-hand side, indicate whether the organisational unit or group contains users above the age of 18.

When setting the age-based access setting, please note:

Select "All users are 18 or older" for organisational units that contain teachers and staff over the age of 18. Learn more about how to set age-based access to Additional Google services.
Starting today, all users for whom a selection was not made (including teachers, staff) in K-12 domains will default to the under-18 experience. This means that they will have restricted access to additional Google services and will no longer be able to access services without on/off controls.
Once completing the steps above, we’d also recommend verifying your school type designation in the Admin Console to ensure that it is correct.