Digital workflow company ServiceNow is to allow customers to request their European data is hosted and handled exclusively in the EU.
The new service is designed to help customers meet compliance obligations, and builds on the existing legal, organisational and technical safeguards already in place.
It is understood ServiceNow’s Irish office will play a key role in overseeing the service.
More than 80 new jobs will be created in a multimillion-euro investment as a result of the move, with customers being able to opt in to the service from early next year at no extra cost.
The jobs will be created across the EU, with locations to be announced, although it is understood a number of those roles could be in Ireland.
Once the new service is up and running, customers and partners will receive support from EU-based teams, with an EU, cloud-hosted, digital workflow solution.
EU-centric service
"With any regulation change, cloud services companies have a choice. They can adopt a 'wait and see' approach or get proactive and help customers and partners innovate. At ServiceNow we are on the front foot, continually investing in our customers, allowing them to operate with the highest level of choice and control over their EU data" said Mark Cockerill, vice-president of legal, EMEA and global head of privacy. "Our new EU-centric service delivery model will give our current customers and partners peace of mind. For customers and partners operating in highly regulated industries, or in the public sector, or those that have yet to make the switch to the cloud, this model gives them certainty and simplicity when selecting the cloud service that best suits their needs."
The decision to offer the service comes following developments prompted by the Schrems II judgment, which left questions remaining over whether data flows to the US were legal under its current surveillance laws, and subsequent recommendations issued last month by the European Data Protection Board.
‘Essential choice’
"The Schrems II ruling has led European organisations to revisit their cloud-related data-protection policies and processes when it comes to international data transfers through cloud services," said Carla Arend, lead analyst, Cloud in Europe for International Data Corporation. "Contractual, privacy and security safeguards and the assurance that data will be kept and handled in the EU help European organisations to comply with European data protection laws while taking advantage of global cloud platforms. Vendors such as ServiceNow that invest to support their customers in response to this ruling are providing essential choice to their customers."
ServiceNow opened its intellectual property and development centre in Dublin in 2018, initially creating 30 jobs in cloud operations, engineering and legal roles.
Earlier this year, the company said it would add 300 jobs at its Dublin office as part of its plans to expand in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, adding to the more than 100 it already employed.
