EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCloud Storage (Personal)Headquarters: US

Google Drive: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Google Drive is Google's cloud service for file storage and sharing. Users store files, sync them between devices and share them with view, comment or edit permissions, optionally with an expiry date. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides as well as Microsoft Office files can be edited in the browser, and PDFs can be annotated. Business editions add shared drives and further controls such as client-side encryption, Vault and data loss prevention policies. Drive is delivered as a web service, with Drive for desktop on Windows and macOS and apps for Android and iOS.

Drive is operated by Google, a US company, so US legislation such as the CLOUD Act can apply. Google Workspace administrators on supported editions can set a data region, United States or Europe, and Drive stores original file content in the region set by the policy of the file's creator. Administrators can also select no preference. Data regions do not cover every kind of data, for example logs or cached content. Drive is not open source.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Google Drive pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
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 8, 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-compliantYesVendor-stated
Compliance documents3 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signalGOOGLE - Google LLC, US (US)Technically measured
CategoryCloud Storage (Personal)
TypeProduct
Websitedrive.google.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 Google Drive

The European alternatives to Google Drive come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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

22 European Cloud Storage (Personal) vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Google Drive one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Google Drive

Google Drive 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.

Google Drive 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.

Google Drive 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 Google Drive 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 Google Drive?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Google Drive include Nextcloud, Filen and Tresorit. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Google Drive?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Google Drive include Nextcloud and Filen. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Google Drive GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Google Drive is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. 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 8, 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".

Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
workspace.google.com/terms/dpa_terms.html
Subprocessor list
workspace.google.com/terms/subprocessors.html
Security page / trust center
workspace.google.com/security/

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Cloud Storage (Personal)

Cloud Storage (Personal): Personal cloud storage — sync and share files. 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

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Cloud Storage (Personal) page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Google Drive — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score