Technology Department News

Privately shared Google files and Anonymous User

 Interesting “bug”

Did you know that if you share a file privately with a known collaborator and they open the file twice, it may appear as if an external anonymous user is accessing the file?  When we found this strange behaviour, we reported it to Google and got this response…
‘In some cases, when a collaborator opens the same file in two different instances, one of the open sessions may show u as an anonymous user. For example, if a user opens a file on their desktop computer, as well as in a mobile device, the oldest session may be shown as an anonymous user’
So now you know … no need to panic.