Data Protection in the Data Center

Data protection in the data center is one of the most important considerations in the decision which IT service provider to use. On the one hand, it’s important to protect sensitive business information and personalised data from partners and clients as well as possible. On the other hand, companies in Germany must also regularly show that they are holding to the provisions of the German Federal Data Protection law.

In Global Access’ data centers, we are dedicated to “Data Protection – Made in Germany,” a global sign of quality. In this way, we are making the data center’s location in Germany to a competitive advantage for your business.

In addition, we enable up to 100% compliance with German data protection law in Global Access’ data centers. That’s something you can use to convince not only your business partners and clients, but also regulatory bodies.

Data Protection for Data Centers located in Germany

Thanks to the digital transformation of the economy, today nearly every company processes personalised data and sensitive business information digitally. If this information is saved or processed in a data center, then numerous provisions of the German Federal Data Protection law, and in future the European Basic Regulation about Data Privacy, apply. In this case, companies are for example not allowed to process personalised data in a data center outside of the European Union (EU), i.e. in the USA.

When choosing an IT service provider, companies must therefore ensure that the service provider’s country has a data protection level comparable to Germany’s and/or the EU’s. Since these are often insufficient and cannot be checked frequently, for data protection reasons it is recommended to choose a data center located in Germany from the outset. The headquarters of the company should also be located in Germany, or at least in the EU.

Both of these criteria naturally apply for Global Access’ data centers. First of all, we guarantee complete compliance with data protection law, since all of the data remain exclusively in data centers located in Germany (in Munich). Secondly, Global Access is an owner-operated limited company (GmbH) in German hands. All of Global Access’ services are performed in Germany.

This means yet another big advantage for you and your clients: “Data Protection – Made in Germany” in one of Global Access’ data centers also means that your data remain protected from US agencies. The USA Freedom Act (formerly: Patriot Act) does not apply in our data centers.

Compliance with German Data Protection Laws

For cases such as the use of data centers, German data protection laws stipulates that your company can conclude an “agreement about the processing of data by third parties” with the IT service provider. In this process, you should be careful that the contract for third-party data processing in the data center sets out concrete and detailed technical and organisational measures with regard to data protection and data security. This is also applicable for all locations from which access to the protected company data can occur – for examples the offices of the data center administrators.

In Global Access’ data centers, you can fulfil all of these data protection principles easily. All contractual agreements are in the German language and conform to German Data Protection Law (BDSG). If needed, we also provide all confidentiality agreements and controller-processor agreements (Paragraph 11 of the BDSG). The complete tests for the processing of data by third parties can be completed directly with your personal consultant at the data center.