With modern innovations such as the internet and countless digital technologies, information is very easy to share and spread. This, of course, also means you need to do a lot more to keep it safe.
This is for a variety of reasons, be it personal or for business use. Data is sensitive, so you need to both keep it secure and be aware of when (and how) to safely give it away when you need to. This includes simple storage, such as private servers and data backups, but it also includes the various forms of data escrow, which provide another form of back-up in legal situations. This is important when dealing with sensitive information, especially when it’s not your own.
Third Party Storage
Of course, you can use your own devices and servers to keep information safe, but there are times when you need to share information. This might be with customers and other businesses, or for legal reasons. Regardless of how you secure the data, the timing is important. The easiest and most effective way to achieve this is to utilize an escrow account.
Holding information in a secure escrow account keeps it safe, and also out of your hands. This neutral party can then distribute the relevant information when it is deemed legally correct to do so.
Data as Property
Likewise, another increasing trend in recent decades is the use of software as a service. This is the legal standpoint by which you don’t own software, but rather lease it from the provider. The actual product and all its inner workings, such as the source code, are property of the original provider. As such, you rely on them to provide you with a working product. This premise is known as software as a service.
This also means you may want a back-up option should the provider fail you in their obligations (outlined in the end user agreement). Again, a third party data escrow can be used to hold the source code and other valuable data. This source code escrow is a good sign of trust from a provider, but also motivates them to maintain the service they’re meant to provide; the service you need.