Non-EU vendorPersonal Backup & SyncHeadquarters: US

ElephantDrive: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

ElephantDrive is an online backup and storage service for personal computers and small businesses. Users install a client that encrypts selected files and folders and uploads them to the provider's cloud, from where they can be restored through a web interface or a device. The service is offered as software-as-a-service on paid subscriptions and is operated by ElephantDrive Inc., a brand within CyberFortress Technologies, a company based in San Antonio, Texas.

For a European organisation, the main sovereignty point is that the company is based in the United States and is subject to US jurisdiction, including requests from US authorities. The privacy policy says personal information is processed on servers in the United States and in other countries, without naming EU or EEA locations. It refers to the EU-US Privacy Shield framework and does not mention the GDPR, so a GDPR-compliant processing agreement would have to be requested separately. Organisations handling personal or regulated data should check this before use.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with ElephantDrive pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (US, OTHER)
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 11, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	Personal Backup & Sync
Type	Product
Website	elephantdrive.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to ElephantDrive

The European alternatives to ElephantDrive 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

19 European Personal Backup & Sync 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 ElephantDrive

ElephantDrive 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.

ElephantDrive hosts data outside the EU (US, OTHER). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

ElephantDrive 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 ElephantDrive 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 ElephantDrive?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to ElephantDrive include Acronis True Image, Ashampoo Backup and Backup4all. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to ElephantDrive?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to ElephantDrive include BorgBackup, Cryptomator and FreeFileSync. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is ElephantDrive GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

ElephantDrive is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, OTHER. 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 11, 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 Personal Backup & Sync

Personal Backup & Sync: Personal backup tools, file synchronisation and data recovery. 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.

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