Data Residency

Workspace is a cloud-based platform designed to support organisations, institutions, teams, and individual users across multiple jurisdictions. Depending on the services used, the configuration selected by the customer, the location of the customer and its users, and the infrastructure and service providers supporting Workspace, personal information, meeting content, files, communications, recordings, transcripts, AI-related data, account information, and other platform data may be stored or processed in South Africa or in other countries where Ann-Connect or its authorised service providers maintain infrastructure or operations.

Ann-Connect is committed to maintaining appropriate controls over the location, transfer, storage, and processing of information entrusted to Workspace. Where data is processed outside the country in which it was originally collected, we take reasonable and appropriate measures to ensure that the transfer and subsequent processing are conducted in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws. This includes consideration of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), where applicable, and other data protection requirements that may apply based on the location of the customer or end user.

Where Workspace provides or introduces region-specific hosting or data residency options, customers may be able to select an applicable geographic region for the storage of certain categories of customer data. The availability of particular regions, services, storage locations, and residency controls may depend on the Workspace product, subscription plan, technical architecture, and infrastructure available at the time.

Data residency controls should not automatically be interpreted as meaning that all processing associated with a Workspace service occurs exclusively within the selected jurisdiction. Certain operational activities may require limited processing in other jurisdictions, including authentication, security monitoring, technical support, service administration, system maintenance, infrastructure management, communications, fraud prevention, or the operation of third-party services integrated with Workspace. Where such processing occurs, Ann-Connect will apply appropriate contractual, technical, organisational, and security safeguards consistent with applicable law.

Where personal information is transferred across national borders, Ann-Connect will take reasonable steps to ensure that the transfer is legally permitted and that appropriate safeguards are in place. Depending on the applicable legal framework, such safeguards may include contractual protections, data processing agreements, standard contractual clauses or equivalent transfer mechanisms, adequacy decisions where applicable, technical security measures, access restrictions, encryption, and other appropriate organisational controls.

Customers are responsible for ensuring that their use of Workspace, including the information they upload, share, record, or otherwise process through the platform, is consistent with the data protection requirements applicable to their organisation. Where a customer is subject to specific data residency, localisation, records-management, or regulatory requirements, the customer should assess the available Workspace configuration and contractual arrangements to determine whether they satisfy those requirements.

Workspace may integrate with or rely upon third-party services, infrastructure providers, communication services, cloud providers, identity providers, payment providers, analytics services, AI services, storage services, or other technology providers. Depending on the service being used, information may be processed by these providers in accordance with their applicable contractual arrangements, privacy requirements, and processing locations.

Ann-Connect seeks to ensure that third-party providers that process personal information on its behalf are subject to appropriate contractual and security requirements. The use of an external integration by a customer may, however, result in information being transferred to or processed by that third party. Customers should review the relevant integration configuration, permissions, privacy documentation, and applicable third-party terms before enabling such services.

Different categories of Workspace data may have different storage and processing requirements. This may include account and identity information, meeting recordings, transcripts, chat messages, documents, project information, AI interactions, system logs, audit records, billing information, technical information, and other content generated or uploaded through the platform. Accordingly, data residency should be assessed in relation to the specific Workspace service and data category rather than being understood as a guarantee that every piece of information associated with an account will remain within a single geographic location.

Ann-Connect may update its infrastructure architecture, hosting arrangements, service providers, and processing locations from time to time in order to improve reliability, security, performance, scalability, resilience, and availability. Where such changes materially affect applicable data residency commitments, Ann-Connect will take appropriate steps to communicate the relevant changes where required by applicable law or contractual obligations.

Customers remain responsible for determining whether Workspace is appropriate for the type of information they intend to process and for configuring the platform in accordance with their legal, regulatory, contractual, and organisational requirements. Customers should consider data classification, access permissions, retention requirements, user roles, integrations, recording settings, AI functionality, and other available controls when deploying Workspace within their organisation.

For enterprise customers with specific regulatory, contractual, or data residency requirements, additional contractual terms, technical configurations, or data processing arrangements may be agreed between Ann-Connect and the customer where supported by the applicable Workspace service.