How SCRIBES Keeps Your Meeting Data in Switzerland
Learn why data sovereignty matters and how SCRIBES ensures your meeting transcriptions never leave Swiss borders.
In an era where data breaches make headlines weekly, organizations are increasingly asking: where does my data actually go? For meeting transcription tools, this question is especially critical — your meetings contain strategic decisions, financial discussions, HR matters, and intellectual property.
The Problem with Cloud-Based Transcription
Most AI meeting assistants route your audio through servers in the US or across multiple jurisdictions. Your voice data — often the most sensitive information in your organization — travels through infrastructure you don't control, governed by laws you may not be subject to.
Under the US CLOUD Act, American authorities can compel US-based companies to hand over data stored anywhere in the world. This means even if a provider claims "European servers," the data may still be accessible to foreign governments.
How SCRIBES Is Different
SCRIBES takes a fundamentally different approach. Every component of our infrastructure runs on dedicated bare-metal servers in Switzerland:
- Audio processing: Your meeting audio is transcribed by on-premise Whisper AI running on our own GPU servers in Swiss data centers. No audio is ever sent to OpenAI, Google, or AWS.
- AI summaries: Meeting summaries and action items are generated by our self-hosted large language model. Zero external API calls.
- Database storage: All transcripts, summaries, and metadata are stored in PostgreSQL databases on Swiss-hosted servers.
- No shared infrastructure: Unlike multi-tenant cloud providers, SCRIBES runs on isolated, dedicated hardware. Your data never shares resources with other organizations.
Swiss Legal Protection
Switzerland offers one of the strongest data protection frameworks in the world. The Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) — recently strengthened in September 2023 — provides robust safeguards that go beyond GDPR in several key areas:
- Criminal penalties for data protection violations (not just fines)
- No obligation to comply with foreign government data requests
- Recognized by the EU as providing "adequate" data protection
What This Means for Your Organization
When you use SCRIBES, you can tell your compliance team, your legal department, and your clients with absolute certainty: meeting data never leaves Switzerland. There are no exceptions, no edge cases, no fine print.
This isn't just a feature — it's the foundation of everything we build.