Data Sovereignty

Data Sovereignty Questions

Where is the data stored: Finding out where data is stored is not always obvious for the current generation of cloud and SaaS hosted services. Who makes the decision on the geographical location of your data? Does your service provider have a mandate to request your consent to move your data interstate or even internationally? Local laws: With distributed computing such as the cloud, data hosted by SaaS applications can land in weird and wonderful places. Whilst this may well keep the costs down, and make access fast, it leaves user's data vulnerable to foreign governments and their associated laws. Data privacy: Do local laws stipulate data retention mandates? When you move your data off the hosted service, is there a secure destruction policy? What security controls are in place to protect your data from malicious actors? Who owns your data: Organizations may not be aware of the ownership rights over data stored in different sovereign nations. Data that was protected by strong privacy laws, may not be protected in a foreign jurisdiction. This can make legal challenges to data access un-defendable. Offshore technical support: Many SaaS companies utilize offshore technical support centers. Support staff may have full access to sensitive data without your consent. This can lead to regulatory violations governing data privacy.