Glossary A–ZLetter E
EU hosting
EU hosting means that an online service and its data are run on servers located within the European Union.
Storage is then governed by EU rules, in particular the GDPR. Location alone, however, does not say who has access.
In screen networks, this concerns the management software, media storage, logs and all auxiliary services: video conversion, maps, fonts, weather data, AI features or email delivery. If personal data is transferred to a country outside the EU, the GDPR imposes additional conditions. Many operators, especially in the public sector and in healthcare, therefore explicitly require hosting in the EU or in Germany.
What matters is the whole path the data takes, not just the main server. A web page that loads fonts or scripts from third-party servers transfers data to those servers in the process. Operators should request the list of sub-processors with their locations and clarify which legal system the provider itself is subject to, because a provider based outside the EU may be subject to disclosure demands from its home country even for data held in the EU.