Apache PDFBox is an open-source Java library for working with PDF documents. Developers use it to extract text, split and merge files, read and fill in forms, create new PDFs, apply digital signatures and check files against PDF/A-1b. It is delivered as a library that an organisation embeds in its own applications, not as a hosted service, and it is published under the Apache License 2.0. It is an alternative to proprietary PDF software development kits, such as those from Adobe.
PDFBox is a project of the Apache Software Foundation, a US non-profit corporation under section 501(c)(3), and is developed by volunteers. As a library it runs entirely inside the organisation's own software, so no vendor receives the documents; the sovereignty question therefore concerns the infrastructure on which the application runs. Because the source code is public, European organisations can audit, build and maintain the library themselves, without licence fees or dependence on a single supplier. The foundation's seat in the United States means that the governance of the project falls under US law.