GDPR Compliance for Personal / Free Accounts

[TomMacD89]

Hi,

I work with various charities in the UK who often use free Dropbox accounts to share files for boards of trustees, teams etc.

There is some confusion as to whether the GDPR compliance steps that Dropbox have made apply to these accounts or only to those on Dropbox Business.

Could this be clarified please?

[siri1]

Dropbox is using server capacity in Germany for business customers.

"Dropbox versucht dem Misstrauen gegenüber den Serverstandort in den USA entgegenzuwirken, indem es Unternehmenskunden beziehungsweise professionellen Nutzern anbietet, deren Daten auf Servern in Deutschland zu speichern (dieses Angebot gibt es allerdings nicht für Privatnutzer). Dropbox nutzt hierfür die Ressourcen der Amazon Web Services im Frankfurter Rechenzentrum." (www.pcwelt.de)

What I am wondering is, if there is GDPR compliance economy and business class at Dropbox. And why Mailchimp is able to provide the necessary DPA.

I was hoping, that Dropbox would find a solution, and not leave its (paying) customers in the cold. My 12-month-plan just extended automatically, and there is obviously no chance to get money refundet, when I cancel the plan now.

After all is Dropbox not the only company offering cloud services (let alone that others do comply to GDPR AND provide DPAs).

[nicolabisseker]

So is this likely to change or are we all going to need to cancel our subscriptions please ? I pay for Dropbox already but not business as I am a one man band photography business. I don't need all that extra storage.  I just need enough to transfer images. I will need to find somebody else if I can't show a DPA. 

[aukevn]

Dropbox does not guarantee that they store the data of business customers in Europe. I asked and they said that if I have 250 users I can negotiate it 😞 

But that is not a requirement for de GDPR, but you do need to inform your customers that the data can be stored in the US (which is of course something not everybody will like given how the US government gets access to data).

[claires]

---

@nicolabisseker wrote:

So is this likely to change or are we all going to need to cancel our subscriptions please ? I pay for Dropbox already but not business as I am a one man band photography business. I don't need all that extra storage.  I just need enough to transfer images. I will need to find somebody else if I can't show a DPA. 

---

It seems so - you will need one of the business accounts where a DPA is available.  However, if you are already paying - it might be that the business accounts might not be much more than you already paying and you could upgrade?

[Persondatakonsu]

Hello

I can't see if you have answered this before:

In our organisation we use DropBox to store personal information (ordinary and more sensitive information).

I think that with should have a DPA with DropBox in order to assure compliance with the GDPR? 

I hope to get an answer asap.

Br

[Mark]

@Persondatakonsu

These are only available to Business customers. 

[Sabryx]

Safe Harbor has not been applicable for three years, now it is the Privacy Shield that regulates relations between the US and the EU. Your answers confuse users

[Sabryx]

-_-

[meldud60]

I run a small dance school and just want to share files with the parents of the students. None of it passes on personal data. BUT sharing files means that everyone can see everyone elses email address. Is there a way to turn this off? I sure can't find a way and I am pretty sure that will make it non GDPR compliant for me. 

Are there other systems than Dropbox that file sharing can take place?

[Jane]

 I’d happily reply to your question meldud60 & send you an alternative that may be helpful, welcome to the Dropbox Community! 

Your statement above is right (i.e. members can see each other inside the share), if all parents are invited in the same shared folder. That can be bypassed if you send them a view-only downloadable shared link instead, that will let them see certain content that you’d like to share with them & they won’t need a Dropbox account to access it. 

Alternatively, you can re-arrange your folder structure & share a separate folder with each parent, so that email addresses are visible only to you. 

I hope that this is helpful & please do keep me updated on how these suggestions work for you in your next post here. Thanks!