If you’re operating in a highly regulated industry, then you may need a significant amount of control over how and where your data is stored. Fortunately for those using Slack for their collaboration and communication strategies, the company just introduced data residency. This means that Slack users will now be able to choose which country and region their data is stored in, to ensure that they properly fulfil corporate compliance requirements and policies.
The new data residency solution aims to solve the problem that many companies face when they want to move their operations into the cloud but fear the lack of control they’ll have when it comes to managing their data. Currently, ten million people use Slack for collaboration each day, but because their data is largely stored in the US, teams from overseas have been forced to sit on the sidelines. Slack data residency will bridge this gap and support more people in highly regulated sectors.
Frankfurt in Germany is the first data region that will become available outside of the US later this year, with additional locations to follow.
Storing Data with Slack
In a blog post about the new data residency feature, Slack was quick to provide information about the kind of data it stores for users. All user-generated messages, posts, searches and files on Slack will be stored in a desired data region, but it will also be encrypted both at rest and in transit.
Additionally, application-generated files and messages will be stored in the same data region as user-generated files and messages. The location of data from third-party apps will depend on the polices of the partner app. Existing customers will be able to migrate their data to a new region when the new storage spaces are announced, however, everyone in your team needs to have their data located in the same region.
Slack noted that data residency is just the latest in a series of investments that Slack has made over the years to continue providing today’s users with the compliance and security features that they need. Slack exceeds many of the broadly recognised standards for messaging security. Slack is also compliant with things like SOC type II, SOC 3, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, and EU-US privacy shield, cloud security alliance, and Swiss-US privacy shield.
When Is Data Residency Available?
Data residency options will be coming to Slack users soon, as part of Slack’s continued efforts to upgrade and improve their security programmes. The data residency feature is now in beta mode, which means that it’s going to be available for Enterprise Grid and Plus customers later in 2019. There will be additional regions announced in the months to come.
