By IT Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
The physical location of an organization’s data is critical because data privacy laws and other forms of regulation (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation) may require it to remain within a certain jurisdiction or to be handled in a specific manner. When a company knows where its data is stored, it allows them to properly adhere to these laws and regulations and avoid costly penalties; doing so also helps them to earn customer trust and maintain a good brand reputation.
As a client of an app or service, knowing your data residency can get tricky. Cloud providers, for example, may automatically make copies of data across different regions for disaster recovery purposes, meaning your data may be stored in one place, but copies of it may exist in another.
However, there are tools on the market that can help companies better understand their data residency, including technology that helps to identify the location of data in the cloud and whether it’s in compliance.
When talking about data residency, it’s not uncommon to hear the following related terms:
- Data sovereignty: The concept that data is governed by the laws of the country where it resides.
- Data localization: The practice of storing and processing data within the same country it originated from.
