Google Meet Starts Using Post-Quantum Cryptography to Protect Calls

Google Workspace Updates, 12 October 2026.

Google says calls in Google Meet now use post-quantum cryptography (PQC). It starts “now with laptop web clients and meeting room hardware, with mobile support coming soon” [1].

Users will not notice anything. “There are no visible changes, and you can continue using Meet normally,” Google says [1].

What is post-quantum cryptography?

Encryption scrambles data so only the right people can read it. Much of today’s encryption relies on maths problems that ordinary computers cannot solve in any practical time. A large, powerful quantum computer could in theory crack some of them.

Post-quantum cryptography means encryption methods designed to resist attacks from such a machine, as well as from ordinary computers.

Google stresses that this is about the future: “No such computer exists today” [1].

Why do it now? “Store now, decrypt later”

The worry is simple. Someone could record encrypted traffic today and keep it, waiting for the day a quantum computer can unlock it.

Google says the change “helps protect today’s Meet traffic from the theoretical risk of being harvested and decrypted by a future quantum computer, an approach commonly referred to as Store Now, Decrypt Later” [1].

In other words, a call made today should stay private even if it is stored for years.

Who gets it, and when

• Devices: laptop web clients and meeting room hardware first. Mobile support is still to come; Google gives no date [1].
• Rollout: gradual, taking “up to 15 days for feature visibility”, starting on 12 October, for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains [1].
• Who: all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and people with personal Google accounts [1].
• Settings: none. Google says there is no admin control and no end-user setting, and that administrators and users “don’t need to take any action” [1].

Not Meet’s first quantum-safe step

Google says: “Google Meet has used quantum-safe encryption previously for client-side encrypted calls (CSE)” [1]. Client-side encryption is an option where the encryption keys are held by the customer’s organisation. Google’s post does not say when that started.

What this means

• Ordinary Meet calls get the protection. Not just special encrypted calls, but standard calls on the web and on room hardware.
• Phones come later. Until mobile support arrives, calls on the mobile apps are not covered by this change, according to Google’s wording.
• Nothing to do. It switches on automatically over about two weeks.

Sources

1. Google Workspace Updates, “Google Meet now uses post-quantum cryptography”, 12 October 2026. https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/10/google-meet-now-uses-post-quantum-cryptography.html

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