Google Workspace Communications Archiving: Global Relay

Global Relay has expanded its Google Workspace communications archiving so financial institutions can capture and retain Gmail, Google Chat, Google Meet, Google Drive and Google Calendar content inside Global Relay Archive.

The vendor sells compliant communications archiving to regulated industries. The expanded Google Workspace communications archiving connectors are built for firms that must meet record-keeping duties such as SEC Rule 17a-4 and FINRA Rule 4511 while rolling out the newest Workspace features.

Global Relay’s product page lists capture for all five applications. It does not state which connectors are new, and it gives no general availability date, regions or plan tiers. Firms interested in the connector use a request form on the page.

What Google Workspace communications archiving now covers

Data from each Workspace application flows into Global Relay Archive, so compliance teams can retain and oversee activity across the suite rather than a narrow slice of it. The scope listed by Global Relay, app by app:

Gmail: email and attachments.
Google Chat: direct messages, group conversations, shared files and conversation metadata.
Google Meet: audio, video and screen-share data, call metadata and transcriptions in 57 languages.
Google Drive: file content and version histories, plus edits, views, shares, ownership and permission changes.
Google Calendar: events, associated metadata, and participant and scheduling data.

For Meet, firms can send recordings, transcripts and related metadata to Google Cloud Storage before archiving them with Global Relay. That adds video calls to the same records estate as email and messaging.

Drive matters because file activity shows who changed a document and when. A message thread alone does not show that.

The connectors convert information from email, voice and enterprise collaboration platforms into one standard format. Records from different channels then sit in a single view inside the archive, which supports search, eDiscovery and the flagging of potential risks.

Setup requires an active Google Workspace account with suitable licenses and a Global Relay account. Representatives from both companies guide the integration.

Why Workspace archiving matters under SEC and FINRA rules

Banks, brokers and asset managers are adopting AI-assisted drafting in Gmail and Google Docs, messaging in Chat and video calls in Meet. Every new channel creates records that regulated firms must preserve and produce for supervisors.

In the US, SEC Rule 17a-4 sets how broker-dealers keep business communications, and it has no carve-outs for particular devices or apps. FINRA Rule 4511 requires member firms to make and keep books and records under the Exchange Act rules.

The cost of gaps has been high. The SEC charged ten firms with recordkeeping failures in September 2023, with combined penalties of about $79 million. Further sweeps followed in 2024, including 16 firms fined $81 million in February and 26 firms fined nearly $393 million in August.

Those cases concerned business messages sent on personal devices and unapproved apps. The common thread was communications that firms could not retain or review.

For compliance teams, the lesson for any sanctioned collaboration suite is the same. If staff can chat, meet and share files in an app, the records of those activities need a retention path before the feature is switched on.

FCA and MiFID II shape Workspace archiving in the UK

UK and EU firms face their own recording duties. Under SYSC 10A of the FCA Handbook, firms must take all reasonable steps to record telephone conversations and keep copies of electronic communications that relate to financial instrument activities.

The rule covers communications intended to lead to a transaction, even if none follows. Firms must also take reasonable steps to stop staff from making or receiving relevant communications on private devices the firm cannot record or copy.

Records are kept for five years, and the FCA can require retention for up to seven years. The requirements implement the recording obligations of MiFID II, which also apply to firms in the EU.

A Meet call with a client about a trade falls within that scope as much as a phone call does. The transcript and metadata become part of the record the firm must be able to produce.

Connecting archived records to supervision

Archiving is the retention step. Supervision is the review step, and the two are usually run by different teams.

Global Relay says a single archive lets compliance staff spot patterns and flag risks across channels. Firms that run communications surveillance on top of an archive depend on complete, consistently formatted data. Missing channels leave blind spots in lexicon and AI-based monitoring.

The wider data question is covered in RegTech Post’s look at AML tech stacks and data silos. Fragmented records held in separate systems slow investigations and audits. Global Relay presents its centralized environment as the answer to that problem.

The company also says the pairing of its archive with Google Workspace means financial institutions need not choose between adopting collaboration and AI tools and keeping a dependable, compliant record of how staff communicate.

What to check before switching on Workspace archiving

Several points sit outside the vendor’s announcement and depend on each firm’s own configuration. Global Relay’s page says archiving can be set up selectively for Meet and Drive, so scope is a decision firms make, and records policy must match it.

Firms also decide where Meet recordings are stored before archiving, because the Google Cloud Storage step adds a location that needs its own retention and access controls. Data residency options are listed by Global Relay under data lifecycle management.

Global Relay has not named customers for the Workspace connectors. The page links to case studies, but none are described in connection with this expansion.

The SEC’s off-channel sweeps showed that regulators test whether firms keep what staff actually use. The FCA’s retention periods of five and seven years apply to the records however they are captured.

Firms that want Google Workspace communications archiving can submit a request through Global Relay’s connector page, which will set out onboarding steps with Global Relay and Google representatives. The availability date for the expanded connectors has not been published.