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Use cases → Email operations

Enforce encryption for sensitive email content automatically

Detect sensitive data in outbound mail and apply encryption or block sending using a delegated service account.

Who it is forIT and security teams responsible for email compliance across an organisation.
APIsGmail API, Admin SDK
Typical scopesgmail.modify, admin.directory.user.readonly

The problem

Users often forget or ignore encryption requirements, leading to sensitive data being sent unprotected. Manual audits are slow and miss near-real-time breaches, exposing the organisation to risk and potential compliance violations.

How it works

  1. Deploy a delegated service account with domain-wide access to scan outbound messages in users’ sent mail.
  2. Use content detection to identify messages requiring encryption based on keywords or patterns (e.g., credit card numbers, NHS numbers).
  3. When a sensitive message is found, either apply a confidential mode label, recall the message if possible, or notify the sender and admin.
  4. Log all actions and provide regular reports for compliance review.

What changes

Sensitive messages are flagged or remediated within minutes, reducing exposure windows and providing an audit trail for compliance.

The trap in this one. Gmail API’s message modification is not instantaneous: if you attempt to modify or recall a message before Google finishes internal processing (typically in the first seconds after send), the API call will silently succeed but have no effect. Messages may already have been delivered externally by the time your automation acts, especially for recipients outside the organisation. Testing only with internal accounts hides this failure mode.

Questions people ask

Can I prevent external delivery of sensitive emails in real time?

Not reliably. The Gmail API does not intercept messages before external delivery; actions taken post-send may be too late for external recipients.

How do I tune detection to reduce false positives?

Define precise regex patterns and supplement with context checks, but expect some manual review. Overly broad rules will frustrate users.

Want this built?

This is a pattern we run in production. We will set up the delegation and build this on top of it — $500 per hour, most of it working the same day.

Talk to us Or read the setup guide

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