Slack brings data residency to the UK

Slack is launching data residencies in Europe and the UK so organisations can have greater control over their data by choosing where it is stored.

The announcement follows the launch of residencies in Germany, France, Australia, and Japan in October.

Traditionally Slack stores data in the US, but to help its global customers have more control over their data, the company is opening up data residencies outside of the US, which includes one in London.

The move is designed to tap into those organisations currently not using Slack as they're unable to store data locally and comply with industry regulations, such as those in financial services, the public sector, and healthcare.

"We've listened to our customers regulatory concerns around having their data hosted outside of the country or region where they operate, and our expansion of data residency into the UK is in direct response to their requests," Ilan Frank, VP of product, enterprise at Slack told Information Age.

"We are making data residency technically and financially accessible so that users have the freedom of where they want to store their data."

Slack is one of a number of cloud-based services that enable remote working to see a huge spike in usage since the outbreak of COVID-19 and the UK is the third-largest global market for the company, behind the US and Japan, in terms of daily active users.

User-generated data, such as message posts, files, and searches, can now be stored within the desired region, according to the company, and regardless of whether the data is in transit or rest, it's always encrypted.

Although existing customers can move their organisation's data to a new residency region, the entire business must be rooted in a single region.