Access Transparency log events

Supported editions for the Access Transparency log events data source in the investigation tool: Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus.  Compare your edition

As your organization's administrator, you can use the security investigation tool to run searches related to Access Transparency log events. There you can view a record of actions that provide information about the actions of Google staff when they access your data.

Access Transparency log events data includes information about:

• The affected resource and action
• The time of the action
• The reason for the action (for example, the case number associated with a customer support request)
• A Google staff member acting on the data (for example, office location)

For more information, go to Access Transparency: View logs on Google access to user content.

Forward log data to Google Cloud

You can opt in to share log data with Google Cloud. If you turn on sharing, data is forwarded to Cloud Logging, where you can query and view your logs, and control how you route and store your logs.

Your access to the security investigation tool

• Supported editions for the security investigation tool include Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Enterprise Essentials Plus.
• Admins with Cloud Identity Premium, Frontline Standard, Enterprise Standard, and Education Standard can also use the investigation tool for a subset of data sources.
• Your ability to run a search in the investigation tool depends on your Google edition, your administrative privileges, and the data source. If you're unable to run a search in the investigation tool for a specific data source, you can generally use the audit and investigation page instead.

Run a search for Access Transparency log events

To run a search in the investigation tool, first choose a data source. You then need to choose one or more conditions for your search. For each condition, choose an attribute, an operator, and a value. 

Follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  SecuritySecurity centerInvestigation tool.
3. From the Data source drop-down list, choose Access Transparency log events.
4. Click Add Condition.
   You can include one or more conditions in your search. You also have the option to customize your search with nested queries—searches with 2 or 3 levels of conditions (for details, see Customize your search with nested queries).
5. From the Attribute drop-down list, choose one of the attributes—for example, Actor or Date. For a complete list of attributes that are available for Access Transparency log events, see the section below.
   
   Note: If you narrow the date range for your search, your results will appear in the investigation tool sooner. For example, if you narrow the search to events that happened in the last week, the query will return faster than if you search without restricting the query to a shorter period of time.
    
6. Choose an operator—for example, Is, Is not, Contains, or Does not contain.
7. Choose or enter a value for the attribute. For some attributes, you can choose from a drop-down list. For other attributes, type in a value.
8. (Optional) To include multiple search conditions, repeat the above steps.
9. Click Search.
   Search results in the investigation tool are displayed in a table at the bottom of the page.
10. (Optional) To save your search, click Save , enter a Title and Description, and then click Save.

Note: Using the Condition builder tab, filters are represented as conditions with AND/OR operators. You can also use the Filter tab to include simple parameter and value pairs to filter the search results.

Attribute descriptions

For this data source, you can use the following attributes when searching log event data:

Attribute	Description
Actor group name	Group name of the actor
Actor home office	Home office of the actor who performed the data access. Displays the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country/region code in which the accessor has a permanent desk. Values include: 3-character continent identifier if the Google staff member is in a low-population country—for example, ASI, EUR, OCE, AFR, NAM, SAM, or ANT "??" means the location isn’t available
Actor organizational unit	Organizational unit of the actor
Date	Date and time of the event (displayed in your browser's default time zone)
Event	The logged event action, such as Resource accessed
Google Workspace product	Name of the product that was accessed
Justifications	Access justifications, such as Customer Initiated Support - Case Number: 12345678
Log ID	Unique log ID
On behalf of	Email address(es) of the users whose authority was used for Access Management controls
Owner email	The email ID or team identifier of the customer who owns the resource
Resource name	Resource name of the resource that was accessed
Tickets	Tickets associated with the justification, if any

Take action based on search results

After you run a search in the investigation tool, you can act on your search results. For example, you can run a search based on Gmail log events, and then use the investigation tool to delete specific messages, send messages to quarantine, or send messages to users' inboxes. For more details about actions in the investigation tool, go to Take action based on search results.

Create activity rules & set up alerts

To help prevent, detect, and remediate security issues efficiently, you can automate actions in the investigation tool and set up alerts by creating activity rules. To set up a rule, set up conditions for the rule, and then specify what actions to perform when the conditions are met. For details and instructions, go to Create and manage activity rules.

Manage your investigations

View your list of investigations

To view a list of the investigations that you own and that were shared with you, click View investigations. The investigation list includes the names, descriptions, and owners of the investigations, and the date last modified. 

From this list, you can take action on any investigations that you own—for example, to delete an investigation. Check the box for an investigation, and then click Actions.

Note: Directly above your list of investigations, under Quick access, you can view recently saved investigations.

Configure settings for your investigations

As a super administrator, click Settings to :

• Change the time zone for your investigations. The time zone applies to search conditions and results.
• Turn on or off Require reviewer. For more details, go to Require reviewers for bulk actions.
• Turn on or off View content. This setting allows admins with the appropriate privileges to view content.
• Turn on or off Enable action justification.

For instructions and details, go to Configure settings for your investigations.

Manage columns in your search results

You can control which data columns appear in your search results. 

1. At the top-right of the search results table, click Manage columns.
2. (Optional) To remove current columns, click Remove item.
3. (Optional) To add columns, next to Add new column, click the Down arrowand select the data column.
   Repeat as needed.
4. (Optional) To change the order of the columns, drag the column name.
5. Click Save.

Export data from search results

You can export search results in the investigation tool to Google Sheets or to a CSV file. For instructions, see Export search results.

Share, delete, and duplicate investigations

To save your search criteria or share it with others, you can create and save an investigation, and then share, duplicate, or delete it.

For details, go to Save, share, delete, and duplicate investigations.

When and how long is data available?

For more information about data sources, go to Data retention and lag times.

Understand the Access Transparency log data

Log field descriptions

Log field name	System field name	Description
Date	items:id:time	Time the log was written
Google Workspace Product	items:events:parameters:GSUITE_PRODUCT_NAME	Customer’s product that was accessed. Upper case required. Can be: GMAIL CALENDAR DRIVE SHEETS SLIDES
Owner Email	items:events:parameters:OWNER_EMAIL	The email ID or team identifier of the customer who owns the resource
Actor Home Office	items:events:parameters:ACTOR_HOME_OFFICE	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country/region code in which the accessor has a permanent desk: "??" if location isn’t available 3-character continent identifier (ASI, EUR, OCE, AFR, NAM, SAM, ANT) if the Google staff member is in a low-population country
Justifications	items:events:parameters:JUSTIFICATIONS	Access justifications, such as Customer Initiated Support - Case Number: 12345678
Tickets	tickets	Tickets associated with the justification, if any
Log ID	items:events:parameters:LOG_ID	Unique log ID
Resource Name	items:events:parameters:RESOURCE_NAME	Name of the resource that was accessed. Resource names can be used in the security investigation tool to further identify, triage, and take action on security and privacy issues in your domain.
On Behalf Of	items:events:parameters:ON_BEHALF_OF	The target of the access. The sharee of a document could be the target of support rather than the owner. On Behalf Of provides extra information to understand the context of an access.
Access Management Policy	items:events:parameters: ACCESS_MANAGEMENT_POLICY	The Access Management policy that was validated before access. Only applies to customers with Access Management configured.

Justification descriptions

Reason	Description
Customer Initiated Support	Customer-initiated support, such as a case number
Externally Initiated Abuse Review	Externally initiated abuse reviews are invoked when content is reported to Google for review. Users can report content as abuse of the Google Terms of Service. As a Super Administrator, you can use the security investigation tool to view details associated with a document—including the document title, owner, document type, and log events that have happened to it within the last 180 days: From the investigation tool, run a search using the Drive log events data source. Under Conditions, click Document ID. Copy the resource ID from the Access Transparency log, and paste it into the Document ID field in the investigation tool. Click Search.  For more details and instructions, go to Customize searches within the investigation tool. Learn more about reporting abuse.
Google Response to Production Alert	Google-initiated access to maintain system reliability around a suspected outage, including for example: Investigation to confirm that a customer isn't affected by a suspected service outage Backup and recovery from outages and system failures
Google Initiated Review	Google-initiated access for security, fraud, abuse, or compliance purposes, including: Ensuring the safety and security of customer accounts and data Confirming whether data is affected by an event that might impact account security (such as malware infections) Confirming whether the customer is using Google services in compliance with Google Terms of Service Investigating complaints by other users and customers, or other signals of abusive activity Checking that Google services are being used consistently with relevant compliance regimes (such as anti-money laundering regulations)
Google Initiated Service	Google-initiated access for the ongoing maintenance and delivery of Google Cloud services, including for example: Technical debugging needed for a complex support request or investigation Remediation of technical issues, such as an isolated storage failure or data corruption
Third Party Data Request	Google accesses customer data to respond to a legal request or legal process. This includes when we respond to legal process from the customer that requires that we access the customer's own data. In this case, Access Transparency logs might not be available if Google can’t legally inform you of such a request or process.

Set up an Access Transparency alert

You can set up an email alert for one or more log filters, such as Owner Email and Actor Home Office. You can also enable an alert for all logs across all products that support Access Transparency.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  SecuritySecurity centerInvestigation tool.
3. From the Data source drop-down list, choose Access Transparency log events.
4. Click + Add a filter.
5. Select one or more filters and click Apply.
6. (Optional) To turn on an alert for all logs across all supported products, click Event NameAccess. This action creates a filter called Event Name: Access.
7. Click Create reporting rule , enter a rule name, and then enter the emails of any additional alert recipients.
8. Click Create.

Integrate Access Transparency log data with third-party tools

You can use the Reports API to integrate Access Transparency logs with your existing security information and event management (SIEM) tools. For more information, go to Access Transparency Activity Events.

When and how long is data available?

Go to Data retention and lag times.

 

Related topics

• Start an investigation based on a dashboard chart
• Create a custom chart based on an investigation
• Start an investigation from the alert center
• Investigate reports of malicious emails
• Investigate file sharing
• Investigate a user across data sources