Security and Data Protection

Create secure forms online

forms.app always values data privacy and security. That's why securing your data is the #1 priority to us. See the technical measures we take and learn how we keep your data safe and secure.

Is forms.app secure?

forms.app always values data privacy and security. That's why securing your data is the #1 priority to us. See the technical measures we take and learn how we keep your data safe and secure.

GDPR Compliance

The European Parliament adopted the GDPR in 2016. It carries a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection, processing and protection of the personal data and privacy of EU citizens for transactions that occur within EU member states. The GDPR also regulates the exportation of personal data outside the EU. forms.app processes all of customers’ personal data complying with the GDPR. Read more

As forms.app has located its servers in European Union, we comply with the GDPR and use all necessary means for data protection.

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR or EU General Data Protection Regulation is a privacy law that helps protect people's personal information and gives EU citizens the right to decide what happens to their personal data. This law applies to any company that has servers in the European Union. For more information, you can visit the data protection page published by the European Commission.

Is forms.app GDPR compliant?

Yes, forms.app’s servers are located in Belgium (EU) and we fully comply with the GDPR framework. This means that your data is safe with forms.app. We will never share your data with anyone without your explicit permission and take all necessary measures to protect your data.

How do we protect your data?

All form data is encrypted and stored in our EU servers. You can always access the data you collect and manage it on the responses page. If you want to sign a Data Processing Agreement with forms.app, you can easily send us an email or fill out the contact form. For more information, please read our privacy policy.

Additional resources:

Certifications and Compliances

1. ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27001 is an international standard for information security. forms.app implements the standard to demonstrate to customers that they meet a strong level of security. We maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of information according to ISO/IEC 27001.

2. ISO/IEC 27701

forms.app follows ISO/IEC 27701 standards for privacy information management to ensure personal information’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This showcases our commitment to maintaining high privacy protection for our customers and upholding their trust.

3. PCI DSS

forms.app does not store customers’ payment data and uses third party applications for payment and one of them is Stripe. Using Stripe ensures compliance with the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standards (PCI DSS 3.2) and the Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2) for processing our customers’ financial information securely in accordance with these standards.

4. OWASP

The Open Web Application Security Project(OWASP) works to improve the security of software and forms.app follows the rules of that and tests of applications according to OWASP.

5. CCPA Compliance

The California Consumer Privacy Act(CCPA) gives California consumers more control over the personal data that businesses collect about them and the CCPA regulations provide guidance on how to implement the law. forms.app is compliant with the CCPA which outlaws the processing of personal data of California consumers without their consent.

6. Spam Protection

You can use in your forms CAPTCHA, as provided by Google, to protect your forms from spammers while still responding to your forms by responders. forms.app offers additional spam protection ways such as multiple coding checks and limit submissions to your form. If you need further protection and spam does get through our team will be ready to help identify the cause and credit your account.

7. Backup

We back up in real time your data between multiple servers hosted by our service provider Google Cloud. If you need to back up your data with a single click and download it as an Excel or Google Sheet document.

8. Network Security

Our network security measures protect your network and data from breaches, intrusions and other threats. We use basic filtering provided by CloudFlare to protect your data and network from any potential DDoS(denial of service) attacks. Our servers are designed to allow only the minimum level of access needed to maintain them. It involves creating a secure infrastructure for devices, applications, users, and applications to work in a secure manner. Our employees can access the servers only through a Virtual Private Network using a 2048-bit encrypted connection with private keys. In addition to 3rd-party security services, our team continuously monitors any suspicious behavior on the entire system.

9. Privacy of Your Forms

We cares about your forms’ privacy and you can choose a level of privacy that limits access to your data. Cloning of your forms or requiring a login to access a submission is disabled and this is by default protected via unique URLs. You are able to make your data public and access to the people in your team or you can access your data by using integrations with your permission.

Security Measures

forms.app maintains an Information Security Policy designed to (i) help secure personal data against accidental or unlawful loss, access or disclosure; (ii) identify reasonably foreseeable and internal risks to security and unauthorized access; and (iii) minimize security risks, including through risk assessment and regular testing.You may have the following rights if you are a resident of Australia, the UK, and EEA Citizens.

Our Information Security Policy includes the following measures:

1. Confidentiality

The measures to ensure confidentiality include;

1.1. Physical Access Control;

Measures suitable for preventing unauthorized persons from gaining access to data processing systems with which personal data are processed or used.
a. Technical Measures
  • Automatic access control system
  • Biometric access barriers
  • Smart cards
  • Manual locking system
  • Doorbell system with camera
  • Video surveillance of entrances
b. Organizational Measures
  • Reception / Receptionist / Gatekeeper
  • Employee / visitor badges
  • Visitors accompanied by employees
  • Care in selection of cleaning services
  • Information Security Policy
  • Work instructions for operational safety
  • Work instruction access control

1.2. Logical Access Control;

Measures suitable for preventing data processing systems from being used by unauthorized persons.
a. Technical Measures
  • Login with username+strong password
  • Firewall
  • Intrusion Detection Systems
  • Use of VPN for remote access
  • Automatic desktop lock
  • Encryption of notebooks / tablet
  • Two-factor authentication in data center operation and for critical systems
Organizational Measures
  • User permission management
  • Creating user profiles
  • Central password assignment
  • Information Security Policy
  • Work instruction IT user regulations
  • Work instruction operational security
  • Work instruction access control
  • Mobile Device Policy

1.3. Authorization Control;

Measures to ensure that those authorized to use a data processing system can only access the data subject to their access authorization and that personal data cannot be read, copied, modified or removed without authorization during processing, use and after storage.
a. Technical Measures
  • Logging of accesses to applications, specifically when entering, changing, and deleting data
  • SSH encrypted access
  • Certified SSL encryption
b. Organizational Measures
  • Use of authorization concepts
  • Minimum number of administrators
  • Management of user rights by administrators
  • Information Security Policy
  • Work instruction communication security
  • Work instruction Handling of information and values

1.4. Separation Control;

Measures that ensure that data collected for different purposes can be processed separately. This can be ensured, for example, by logical and physical separation of the data.
a. Technical Measures
  • Separation of productive and test environment
  • Physical separation (systems / databases / data carriers)
  • Multi-tenancy of relevant applications
  • VLAN segmentation
  • Staging of development, test and production environment
b. Organizational Measures
  • Control via authorization concept
  • Determination of database rights
  • Information Security Policy
  • Data Protection Policy
  • Work instruction operational security
  • Work instruction security in software development

1.5. Pseudonymization;

The processing of personal data in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to appropriate technical and organizational measures.
a. Technical Measures
  • log files are pseudonymized at the request of the client
b. Organizational Measures
  • Internal instruction to anonymize/pseudonymize personal data as far as possible in the event of
  • disclosure or even after the statutory deletion period has expired
  • Information Security Policy
  • Data Protection Policy
  • Specific internal regulations on cryptography

2. Integrity

The measures to ensure integrity include;

2.1. Transfer Control;

Measures to ensure that personal data cannot be read, copied, altered or removed by unauthorized persons during electronic transmission or while being transported or stored on data media, and that it is possible to verify and establish to which entities personal data are intended to be transmitted by data transmission equipment.
a. Technical Measures
  • Use of VPN
  • Logging of accesses and retrievals
  • Provision via encrypted connections such as sftp, https and secure cloudstores
  • Use of signature procedures (case dependent)
b. Organizational Measures
  • Survey of regular retrieval and transmission processes
  • Transmission in anonymized or pseudonymized form
  • Careful selection of transport personnel and vehicles
  • Personal handover with protocol
  • Information Security Policy
  • Data Protection Policy

2.2. Input Control;

Measures that ensure that it is possible to check and establish retrospectively whether and by whom personal data has been entered into, modified or removed from data processing systems. Input control is achieved through logging, which can take place at various levels (e.g., operating system, network, firewall, database, application).
a. Technical Measures
  • Technical logging of the entry, modification and deletion of data
  • Manual or automated control of the logs(according to strict internal specifications)
b. Organizational Measures
  • Survey of which programs can be used to enter, change or delete which data
  • Traceability of data entry, modification and deletion through individual user names (not user groups)
  • Assignment of rights to enter, change and delete data on the basis of an authorization concept
  • Retention of forms from which data has been transferred to automated processes
  • Clear responsibilities for deletions
  • Information Security Policy
  • Work instruction IT user regulations

3. Availability and Resilience

The measures to ensure availability and resilience include;

3.1. Recoverability Control;

Measures capable of rapidly restoring the availability of and access to personal data in the event of a physical or technical incident.
Technical Measures
  • Backup monitoring and reporting
  • Restorability from automation tools
  • Backup concept according to criticality and customer specifications
Organizational Measures
  • Recovery concept
  • Control of the backup process
  • Regular testing of data recovery and logging of results
  • Storage of backup media in a safe place outside the server room
  • Existence of an emergency plan
  • Information Security Policy
  • Work instruction operational security

4. Procedures for regular Review, Assessment and Evaluation

4.1. Data Protection Management

a. Technical Measures
  • Central documentation of all data protection regulations with access for employees
  • Security certification according to ISO 27001
  • Data protection checkpoints consistently implemented in tool-supported risk assessment
b. Organizational Measures
  • Staff trained and obliged to confidentiality/data secrecy
  • Regular awareness trainings at least annually
  • Internal Information Security Officer appointed:
  • Processes regarding information obligations according to Art 13 and 14 GDPR established
  • Formalized process for requests for information from data subjects is in place
  • Data protection aspects established as part of corporate risk management
  • ISO 27001 certification of key parts of the company including data center operations and annual monitoring audits

4.2. Incident Response Management

a. Technical Measures
  • Use of firewall and regular updating
  • Use of spam filter and regular updating
  • Use of virus scanner and regular updating
  • Intrusion Detection System (IDS) for customer systems on order
  • Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) for customer systems on order
b. Organizational Measures
  • Documented process for detecting and reporting security incidents / data breaches (also with regard to reporting obligation to supervisory authority)
  • Formalized procedure for handling security incidents
  • Involvement of ISO in security incidents and data breaches
  • Documentation of security incidents and data breaches via ticket system
  • A formal process for following up on security incidents and data breaches
  • Information Security Policy
  • Data Protection Policy
  • Work instruction operational security
  • Work instruction IT user regulations

4.3. Data Protection by Design and by Default

a. Technical Measures
  • No more personal data is collected than is necessary for the respective purpose
  • Use of data protection-friendly default settings in standard and individual software
b. Organizational Measures
  • Data Protection Policy (includes principles "privacy by design / by default")
  • OWASP Secure Mobile Development Security Checks are performed
  • Perimeter analysis for web applications

4.4. Order Control (outsourcing, subcontractors and order processing)

a. Technical Measures
  • Monitoring of remote access by external parties, e.g. in the context of remote support
  • Monitoring of subcontractors according to the principles and with the technologies according to the preceding chapters 1, 2
b. Organizational Measures
  • Work instruction supplier management and supplier evaluation
  • Prior review of the security measures taken by the contractor and their documentation
  • Selection of the contractor under due diligence aspects (especially with regard to data protection and data security)
  • Conclusion of the necessary data processing agreement on commissioned processing or EU standard contractual clauses
  • Framework agreement on contractual data processing within the group of companies
  • Written instructions to the contractor
  • Obligation of the contractor's employees to maintain data secrecy
  • Agreement on effective control rights over the contractor
  • Regulation on the use of further subcontractors
  • Ensuring the destruction of data after termination of the contract
  • In the case of longer collaboration: ongoing review of the contractor and its level of protection

4.5. Data Processing Agreement(DPA)

5. Employee Security

forms.app has signed confidentiality agreements with the employees and contractors. Also, all employees and contractors have a common way to report incidents approved by the organization and they will undergo at least an annual security awareness training.

Last updated on July 2022