I build and sell legal technology for corporate lawyers and law firms to help them modernize their practice, find efficiencies and better serve their clients.
One of the key attributes of modernizing the tools and software used by law firms is migrating to cloud solutions, which offer greater reliability, features and security vis-a-vis on-premises software solutions. Despite the benefits, I routinely encounter the great myth of cloud technology within the first few minutes of any call, notably “Where is the data stored?” or “Is everything stored in Canada?”
Particularly telling is not that this question is raised at all, but often that it is the first, the only or the paramount cloud-related inquiry. The legal profession should be lauded for investigating before adopting, but in some cases asking the wrong questions can be more harmful than asking no questions, lest the user satisfy him or herself with a false sense of security.
As security experts well know, data residency does not provide any additional material security. In our case, we confirm with our clients that, indeed, all data is stored in data centres in Canada. Our choice to host data in Canada, however, is one part incidental and one part reactionary to market demands, rather than a decision made in furtherance of our security infrastructure…
