Communicat is:
- 100% Australian-owned and is therefore compliant with Australian legal jurisdiction (Victoria, Australia);
- All of Communicat’s services are provided by our full-time Australian-based staff, all of whom are Australian citizens;
- Your data is always physical retained in Australian-based data centres.
We do not outsource any hosting services. The only aspect that we outsource is to rent space for our server racks within high security data centres that are based within Australia – Melbourne.
Data sovereignty is not as simple as having your data hosted within Australia. If your data hosting service provider is overseas owned, and they claim that your data is hosted in Australia, does that mean your Data Sovereignty requirements have been met?
For example, consider a situation where your data hosting company is owned by overseas principals, therefore they will be obliged to comply with laws in their country of origin. Under those circumstances your confidential data can be accessed by employees who are not subject to Australian laws, and your data can also be accessed by the government of the country of origin.
The secondary consequence of having your data hosted by an overseas-owned company is that you may be exposing your confidential data to a range of risks that are inherent in the overseas domicile of the business.
There have been hundreds of cases where overseas corporations have provided access to information for their government and a secondary consequence has been that information has been accessed by third parties for illegal and disreputable purposes.
The issue of Data Sovereignty is complex. Please feel free to contact us with your questions and we will be pleased to answer your questions and advise you on the level of Data Sovereignty that is relevant and necessary for your business.
Communicat provides hosting and professional services to a range of organisations where Data Sovereignty is a prime concern.
Our clients operate in a range of industries where security is a major concern, including:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait related services and organisations
- Accountants / Auditors
- Australian Federal, State and Local Government Services
- Charities
- Community Services
- Defence Agencies
- Emergency Services
- Family Services
- Finance Services
- Government and government-funded organisations
- Health Services
- Housing
- Human Resources and Payroll
- Law Enforcement
- National Disability Insurance Scheme – NDIS
- Not for Profit – NFP
- Payroll and Human Resources
- Religious Organisations
- Social Services
- Sports Groups
- Youth Organisations
We have a long history of providing IT services to organisations where confidentiality and compliance with Privacy Laws and other forms of legal compliance are essential.
- If your business has contractual obligations under Australian law (e.g. Australian privacy laws and legal jurisdiction) then it is highly likely that, for full legal compliance therefore any delegation of your services (e.g. storage of your data) should be in the hands of service providers which operate entirely within the Australian legal framework;
- Having your data centre “located within in Australia” does not necessarily mean their service is compliant with Australian data sovereignty requirements. If there is a legal dispute you may find that you are extremely limited in your means of legal resource due to the overseas legal jurisdiction under which that company operates.
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