In 2018, a US law just a few pages long changed the question of data confidentiality in Europe. It was not passed to target French companies. Yet it affects them directly as soon as they entrust their data to a provider subject to US law.
01Three laws, one logic.
These texts don't share the same purpose, but they share one principle: what matters is not where the data is stored, it is the legal nationality of whoever controls it.
02Hosted in France doesn't mean protected.
This is the most common confusion. A server in Paris run by a subsidiary of a US group remains within reach of these laws. Try both cases:
The request can reach your data, even stored in Paris (CLOUD Act).
SIMPLIFIED DIAGRAM — NOT LEGAL ADVICEIt's not where your data is that matters. It's who can be forced to hand it over.
03The three questions to ask your providers this week.
No audit needed to get started. Send these three questions to each of your cloud, email and storage providers. Their answers — or their silence — will tell you what matters.
04What QUADZA does.
We made a simple choice: a collaboration suite published in France, data hosted in France, and no parent company subject to US law. Our own tools run on the QUADZA suite — we host what we write.
