Google Search

Is the Google app safe?

The Google app is safe in the narrow sense: your account is well protected and the app itself has no record of leaking search data. The real costs are privacy and what Search shows you. Apple's privacy label lists your search history, browsing history, coarse location and user ID as data used for third-party advertising, scam ads still get through Google's filters, and AI Overviews can be confidently wrong. We score the app 55/100, below Google Maps (60) and far below DuckDuckGo (84), which does not store searches with your IP address.

What does Google keep from your searches?

Search is the centre of Google's advertising business, and the app collects more than the website alone. Besides the advertising data, Apple's label lists precise location, contacts, emails or text messages, photos, audio and payment info as collected and linked to you for app features, analytics or personalisation. There is no "Used to Track You" section, meaning Google does not declare tracking you across other companies' apps. Google Play's data safety section says the app shares no data with other companies.

What gets saved depends on Web & App Activity. While it is on, Google saves your searches, the device's general location, ads you click and things you buy on advertisers' sites. A box inside the same setting adds Chrome history and activity from sites that use Google services. Google's help page currently warns that settings for its Search services, including Search, Maps and Shopping, are being updated and may not match what you see.

The Discover feed, the cards under the search bar, is built from that history. If the feed seems to know too much about you, that is the setting at work.

Scam ads and AI answers

Search ads are a favourite tool of fraudsters because they appear above the real result. Fake bank login pages, fake airline helplines and malware-laced "download" pages for popular software are the usual patterns. Google's 2025 Ads Safety Report, published in April 2026, says it blocked or removed more than 8.3 billion ads and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts, with 602 million ads and 4 million accounts linked to scams. Google says more than 99% of policy-violating ads were stopped before they were shown. The remainder is still a large number.

AI Overviews add a different risk: a wrong answer in Google's own voice. In January 2026 the Guardian reported misleading health information, including liver test ranges given without context. Google said its clinicians found many answers were supported by good sources, but AI Overviews then disappeared for the exact liver test searches the paper flagged. Rewording the question, for example "lft reference range", could still bring them back.

For children, SafeSearch is set to Filter, which blocks explicit results, for anyone Google's systems think is under 18 and for Family Link accounts. Everyone else gets Blur, which blurs explicit images but still shows explicit text and links. The App Store rates the app 16+.

Regulators and courts

Google Search has the heaviest regulatory record of any Google app we score, though much of it is about competition rather than privacy.

• EU, July 2026. On 23 July 2026 the European Commission fined Google €460 million under the Digital Markets Act for favouring its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results in Search, alongside a €430 million fine over Google Play. Google had 60 days to comply; we could not confirm whether it has appealed. A second DMA probe, opened in November 2025, looks at whether Google unfairly demotes news publishers.
• United States. A federal court ruled in August 2024 that Google illegally kept a monopoly in search. On 2 September 2025 it barred exclusive distribution deals and ordered Google to share some search index and user-interaction data with rivals. Google appealed the ruling in January 2026 and the government cross-appealed in February.
• Texas. In May 2025 Google agreed to pay $1.375 billion to settle two Texas lawsuits covering location tracking, incognito searches and biometric data. Google said the claims concerned policies it had long since changed.

How to use the Google app more safely

1. Open your Google account's activity controls and either turn off Web & App Activity or set auto-delete to 3 months.
2. Untick the box that adds Chrome history to Web & App Activity unless you want it there.
3. Turn off ad personalisation in your Google account's ad settings.
4. Skip sponsored results when you look for a bank, airline, government service or software download.
5. Lock SafeSearch through Family Link on a child's account.
6. If you want search without an account history, search signed out in a private window, or use a private search engine such as DuckDuckGo.

How we scored it

Security (74) and transparency and control (70) are the app's strongest factors, thanks to Google account protection and clear deletion tools. Privacy (40) reflects the search and browsing data used for advertising, and scams and harmful content (50) the scam ads and AI answer errors. The regulatory record (25) is the weakest, driven by repeated rulings against Google Search in the US and EU.