How does owning your own system help with GDPR and EU data residency?
Most US-hosted SaaS tools rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) to justify EU data transfers. SCCs are legally fragile: one court ruling can invalidate them overnight. A custom system on your own isolated EU instance removes that risk entirely: your data never leaves the jurisdiction you choose, you control retention and deletion, and there is no vendor data-sharing agreement to audit at renewal.
The GDPR risk hidden in per-seat SaaS
US-hosted SaaS transfers data under SCCs — a mechanism the EU has previously invalidated.
Schrems II (Court of Justice of the EU, 2020) invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield. Most US SaaS vendors scrambled to SCCs, but SCCs are imperfect and legally contested. If the EU tightens them again, your vendor's compliance posture may change overnight — and you have no control over it. A custom system on an EU-hosted isolated instance removes this risk category entirely.
EU data residency on your own instance
Your data never leaves an EU jurisdiction unless you choose otherwise.
Rollout IT deploys each customer on their own isolated instance, hosted in EU data centres by default (AWS eu-west or equivalent). Your data model, backups, and logs all live in the same jurisdiction. You choose the region; we document it in your Data Processing Agreement.
Related questions
Yes. A DPA is included in the founding contract. It specifies data categories, lawful basis, retention periods, and security measures. It names EU data residency as the default.
Sources
- Court of Justice of the EU, Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland (Schrems II), Case C-311/18 (2020)
- GDPR Articles 17, 20, 28 (Right to erasure, portability, processor obligations)
- Rollout IT Data Processing Agreement template (2025)
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