How to prevent sharing of document templates in Google drive that I didn't authorize?

Question

Not too long ago, I decided to switch to Google Drive and Docs to write my cover letter and resumes, I already use the e-mail address to send them anyways, so using Drive and Docs seemed like a good idea.

I uploaded a template document that contains the basic information that is common on every application I send out (name, phone, Github url, previous work and education history, etc), and I made sure that only I could view the document.

I use KeePass to create and store a 64 character password (mixed with numbers, letters, and symbols), and I make it a habit to change the password periodically.

Yesterday, when I signed in, I realized the template was shared with someone that I don't even know. I can't understand how this happened, and I nearly shutdown the account. So far, I've removed the documents and migrated back to my previous workflow of using a word processor and a portable HD to store my documents.

If I were to shutdown the account, would who ever I shared the document with still have access to it? What should I do to prevent this from happening again? The information isn't too sensitive (you can get the same information on Linkedin), but I'm unsure of how to proceed.

Answer 1

It sounds like you've created a document-template & saved it to the template-gallery in google-docs. This would make your template public.

If you're using & paying for g-suite, you can (likely, I haven't tested this) make private templates.

But if you're using the public/free google-docs, your templates will be made public.

That's not to say your documents can't be private in google-docs, but that document-templates are made public. You may want to work around this by making copies of a document which stores the commonly used content, rather than using a template to store the content which is commonly used across your documents.

Templates are meant more for storing layout/functionality than for storing information.