Learn about call & meeting encryption in Google Meet

• Meetings: Create or join scheduled or instant cloud-encrypted Google Meet meetings with a link. Learn more about meeting features in the new Meet app.
• Meet calls (available for Business and EDU only): Make cloud-encrypted 1:1 calls on mobile to other people by ringing their Workspace account directly to alert them you're trying to call them. Learn about Meet calls in the new Meet app.
• Meet Legacy Calls (previously known as Duo): The classic end-to-end encrypted experience that involves ringing a number or group directly. Learn about Meet Legacy Calls in the new Meet app.

Shared secret keys stay on the callers’ devices

Your device decrypts your call’s audio and video with a shared secret key. This key is created on your device and your contact’s device and is deleted after the call ends. It’s not shared with any server.

What’s needed for a shared key

To calculate the shared key, each device needs:

• A private key, which is saved only on your device
• A public key, which is saved on Duo’s servers

The first time you set up or link your calling account in Meet, your device creates several private/public key pairs. This way, you’re ready for several end-to-end encrypted calls.

How shared secret keys are created

• The devices exchange their public keys but don’t reveal their private keys.
• Next, each device uses its private key and the public key from the other device to calculate the shared secret key. They use a mathematical process called cryptography.

Google servers can’t decode your call

When you call someone else on Duo, your call’s audio and video typically go directly from your device to their device. This connection is called peer-to-peer. The call doesn’t go through a Google server.

However, sometimes a peer-to-peer connection isn't available, like if a network setting blocks it. In this case, a Google relay server passes a call’s audio and video between your device and the device you called. The server can’t decode your call because it doesn’t have the shared secret key.

Group calls stay private on the server

Group calls are also end-to-end encrypted. To make sure group calls are high-quality, they go through a Google server.

That server routes everyone’s call audio and video to others in the group. To route calls, the server uses info about your call, like which device the video is from. The server doesn't have access to the end-to-end encryption keys and can't decrypt the media.

Group calls use multiple keys

To be part of a call that goes through a server, each group member’s device automatically uses:

• A sender key to encrypt the call’s audio and video. When someone starts a group call, each device exchanges this key with the other devices.
• A client-to-server key to encrypt info about the call. Each device exchanges this key with the server.

What the keys do

The keys work to:

• Encrypt your call’s audio and video so that only other people in the group can hear and see it.
• Decode the audio, video, and info from other people in the group call.

Keys can change during group calls

Everyone’s devices exchange new sender keys if either:

• Someone leaves a group.
• A person who wasn’t part of the group gets added to it during the call.

If a person in the group doesn’t immediately join the group call, their device can still use everyone’s sender keys. This way, that person can join the call anytime while it’s live.

When the group call ends, the keys are deleted.