Atlassian Cloud and the GDPR

Atlassian announced changes to the licensing model in October 2020 and implemented them in the first quarter of 2021. Some say: long overdue -  A disaster, say the others. Atlassian aims to offer all products such as Confluence, Jira, Jira Service Management and Bitbucket as cloud-first products. For installation in your own data center, the “Data Center” option is still available.  However, these are reserved for companies with a larger number of users. For all other installations, especially those of medium-sized companies, a migration to the Atlassian Cloud is highly recommended. Scandio supports the cloud-first strategy, as the focus here clearly lies on customer benefits.

Is this even possible? The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has clear requirements in this regard. The good news is: yes, in general, the Atlassian Cloud meets the requirements for data security. On the other hand, it is the companies responsibility to check which risks are associated with the deployment of the cloud. The risks must be assessed on the basis of the stored data. In our view, the resulting data protection impact assessment is therefore a basic requirement for all companies to use the Atlassian Cloud.

Atlassian has made great progress in information security and data protection over the last two years. An important resource for all data protectors is the Atlassian Trust Center. To keep an overview of the upcoming data protection-related innovations in the cloud, it is also worth taking a look at the Atlassian Cloud Roadmap. This shows, for example, that local data storage has already been implemented in Europe and Germany and that the “bring-your-own-key” function is not far on the horizon.

Scandio already supports many medium-sized and large companies in the implementation of cloud products, especially the Atlassian Cloud. The fashion company Marc’O Polo has been using Confluence and Jira in the Atlassian Cloud since 2017 and currently operates two Jira Service Management instances in the Atlassian Cloud as well. Siemens, BMW and other enterprise companies also use Atlassian Cloud in addition to their on-premise installation. In 2021, the topic of moving to the cloud has become much more prominent. The availability of add-ons in the Atlassian Cloud also makes migrations easier and more customer-friendly. In this regard, Scandio was currently able to move the Atlassian tools of the environmental and waste disposal specialist Landbell to the cloud and also successfully migrate complex add-ons such as Tempo Timesheets.

Scandio’s services include not only consulting and technological expertise in the implementation of Atlassian Cloud products, but also assistance in the compliance with the DSGVO requirements. Of course, Scandio’s consultants are not allowed to provide legal advice, but they are available to assist with best practice information and templates on the topics of order processing agreement, data protection impact assessment and technical organizational measures.

Likewise, Scandio is happy to provide support in selecting the right licensing model in the cloud and in optimizing the cost of cloud subscriptions. Data protection, information security and costs differ clearly in the Standard, Premium and Enterprise options.