Data residency
Updated
Data residency is the physical location where data is stored and processed: the country, and sometimes the region, of the servers that hold it. A vendor's data residency answers the question "where does our clients' information actually live?"
General information for clinics in the United States. This is not legal advice; ask your own counsel how the rules apply to your clinic.
For a vet clinic, the data in question includes client names and phone numbers, pet records synced from the practice-management system (PIMS), call recordings, transcripts and messages. Modern phone and AI tools often pass that data through several services, such as speech-to-text, the AI model and storage, so the answer covers every step, not just the main database.
Residency, sovereignty and localization
These terms are related but not the same. Data residency is where the data sits. Data sovereignty is which country's laws apply to it, which usually follows its location. Data localization is a legal rule that data must stay inside a country. In the United States, where a private business's data is kept is mostly set by contracts, industry requirements and customer expectations rather than by a single general localization law, but some contracts, insurers or larger groups ask for US-only storage.
Questions to ask a vendor
Ask where the data is stored, including backups and exports. Ask where it is processed, including any AI or transcription services. Ask whether any subprocessor handles it outside the country, and how you will be told if that changes. A published subprocessor list with locations makes these answers easy to check.
An example
Before signing with a new phone vendor, a practice owner asks for its subprocessor list. She checks that call recordings, transcripts and backups stay in the US, that the AI and transcription services run there as well, and that the contract says she'll be told before a new subprocessor is added.
How Tilly handles it
Tilly is hosted in the United States. Your calls, transcripts, recordings, backups and exports are stored and processed there. Tilly is available to clinics in the US only. Our current subprocessors, with what each one does and where it processes data, are listed on the subprocessors page.
The vet clinic phone compliance guide and is AI safe on vet clinic phones? cover the wider questions to ask any phone vendor.