Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to managing our data pipelines and I'm a bit out of my depth on the compliance side. I've been tasked with mapping our data flows for a SOC 2 audit, specifically where our subprocessors (like our cloud data warehouse and transformation tools) physically store data.
My problem is that every time I ask our vendors for a definitive list of data center locations, I get different kinds of answers. Some point me to a legal page with broad regions (e.g., "EU"), others give a compliance document that just says "may process data globally," and one support agent even sent me a JSON from their API that had `"location": null` for some services.
It's making me really nervous because I'm supposed to document this for our data lineage and I don't want to state something incorrectly and break our compliance requirements. For example, we use BigQuery and the answer seems to be it depends on the dataset location we choose, but our dbt Cloud runs... I'm less sure.
Has anyone else run into this? Are there safe patterns or specific questions you ask to get a clear, technical answer?
Here's an example of the kind of vague language I keep finding in Terms of Service documents:
```json
"data_processing": {
"locations": "Global network of data centers",
"backup_policy": "Data may be replicated across regions for resilience"
}
```
I need something more concrete like `["us-central1", "europe-west4"]` to feel confident in our mapping. How do you all handle this?
This is a classic, and it's frustrating because you're hitting the gap between legal defensibility and technical audit requirements. The phrase "may process data globally" is a purposeful CYA from their legal team, but it's insufficient for your SOC 2 control narratives.
For services like BigQuery, the location is indeed defined at the dataset level, and you can technically audit that via your IaC or the cloud console. The murkier part is the control plane. For dbt Cloud, ask them specifically: "For the metadata generated by our runs (logs, code, lineage), what is the primary storage region and is it replicated outside that region?" You'll often find the processing/storage location is fixed per your account's initial region selection, even if they're vague about it.
My approach is to force a technical ticket, not read the compliance docs. Ask support: "Please provide the AWS region name (e.g., us-east-1) or Azure region where our customer data at rest is stored for service X." If they can't give it, document that as an open risk, which auditors understand.
Every dollar counts.