It sounds like a policy setting in your G Suite domain settings.

@cbrewer Sure enough, my network admin enabled mobile device management in our G Suite and enabled the password option.

Just created an account here to thank @cbrewer -- this was driving me absolutely crazy today!

In my situation, there is absolutely no way that someone turned on the password option overnight (only two people have admin rights), yet turning it off solved the issue. What's mind boggling is that the setting was enabled for years and only became a problem today.

Ditto to bduffy's comments. Suddenly had students and staff coming to me with iPads showing the "passcode" prompt. Thank whomever I found this post quickly and was able to turn it off! But there are only 3 Google admins in our domain, I know myself and another did not turn this on - checking with the 3rd, but 99% sure she did not either. Suspect some G Suite db update accidentally flipped this switch. In our case, I know it was not turned on prior to today, as I'm in it every day and see "0 Mobile Devices" on the dashboard - any other number sticks out like a sore thumb.

Just out of curiosity, why don't the iPads have passcodes already? Are they shared iPads?

Hi, Kindly help me. I am getting the same error of device policy alert on my iphone6 esp for google hangouts. How do I switch off the password option. Pl guide with the process. Thank you.