The launch from Slack will mean that customers in the UK and other regions benefitting from the expansion get more choice regarding where to store their data.
Companies that use Slack and are entirely rooted in the UK will be able to move its data closer to home.
Also, this will make Slack more available to companies in highly regulated sectors, such as the public sector, healthcare and financial services.
This news follows data residency expansion to other regions, including France, Germany, Japan and Australia.
How have companies adapted to the GDPR?
“We’ve listened to our customers’ regulatory concerns around having their data hosted outside of the country or region where they operate, and our expansion of data residency into the UK is in direct response to their requests,” said Ilan Frank, vice-president product, enterprise at Slack.
“We are making data residency technically and financially accessible so that users have the freedom of where they want to store their data.
“This functionality is yet another way that Slack is ensuring it’s offering a secure, enterprise-grade environment that can scale with any type of company – whether it’s a small start-up or large enterprise.”
Slack has assured its customers via a blog post that other than a change in region of residence for its data, their experience and features will remain unchanged.
It’s estimated that 12 million people use Slack per day, but those who are based outside the United States have found it more difficult to comply with corporate data policies and compliance requirements.
Where is the data stored?
When using Slack, data is generated from messages, posts, files and searches. This is encrypted, and stored together with data generated by messages and files from the application itself.
However, data generated by third-party apps that are integrated into a company’s Slack infrastructure, such as Google Drive and Trello, varies in policy depending on the application partner in question.
Slack data is secured by ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, EU-US Privacy Shield, Swiss-US Privacy Shield and Cloud Security Alliance protocols.
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