EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorIdentityHeadquarters: US

Duo Security: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Duo, now Cisco Duo, is an identity and access management (IAM) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) product. It offers phishing-resistant MFA, single sign-on, passwordless login and device trust, and can be used as a full IAM solution or as a broker on top of existing identity sources. It also includes tools for identity intelligence and threat detection. It targets small and medium businesses, enterprises, government agencies and managed service providers. Administrators work through an admin portal and users through the Duo Mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Duo was founded in Ann Arbor and has been part of Cisco Systems, a US company, since 1 October 2018. The parent company is therefore in the United States, which is relevant for the US CLOUD Act. The sources consulted do not state where a Duo tenant's data is stored; this can be confirmed with Cisco. The software is proprietary and not open source. European organisations considering Duo should ask for written confirmation of the region in which their tenant runs and which sub-processors are used.

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Sovereignty score
27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 9, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUS, EUVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
Hosting signalAMAZON-02 - Amazon.com, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryIdentity
TypeProduct
Websiteduo.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Duo Security

The European alternatives to Duo Security come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

58 European Identity vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Duo Security

Duo Security is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Duo Security hosts data in US, EU. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Duo Security is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Duo Security together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Duo Security?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Duo Security include Procivis, Evolveum midPoint and Hanko. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Duo Security?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Duo Security include Evolveum midPoint, Hanko, Kanidm, LemonLDAP::NG and NethServer. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Duo Security GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Duo Security is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 9, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Identity

Identity: Identity and access management — SSO, MFA, directory services. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

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8 European alternatives to Duo Security — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score