You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Can Dropbox’s trusted third party companies request to view the files in my account?
Section 10 of Dropbox’s privacy policy FAQ is headed - What categories of personal information are included in the information Dropbox collects and discloses to trusted third parties?
In that s...
Thanks for the follow up Thoughts - I appreciate the clarifications as well.
Well, basically, Dropbox does need to disclose limited data with third parties.
For example, Zendesk will have your email address and account information, as will SalesForce etc - we do not disclose the content of our customers files to our trusted 3rd parties.
Another example would be that Dropbox uses Amazon Web Services to store files of Dropbox team customers who want their files stored in Europe. We require these trusted third party service providers to process data based on our instructions and in compliance with our privacy requirements. Dropbox can’t provide its Services without using these third party service providers, so it’s not possible to opt out of data sharing with all third parties without deleting your account.
Like most major online services, Dropbox personnel will, on rare occasions, need to access users’ file content (1) when legally required to do so; (2) when necessary to ensure that our systems and features are working as designed (e.g., debugging performance issues, making sure that our search functionality is returning relevant results, developing image search functionality, refining content suggestions, etc.); or (3) to enforce our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.
Access to users’ file content is limited to a small number of people. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit access to file content except in these rare circumstances. In addition, we use a number of physical and electronic security measures to protect user information from unauthorized access.
To sum it up, disclosing “your stuff” is not necessarily equal to giving 3rd parties access to view the content of “your stuff”.I hope this clears things up!
Walter
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffThanks for the follow up Thoughts - I appreciate the clarifications as well.
Well, basically, Dropbox does need to disclose limited data with third parties.
For example, Zendesk will have your email address and account information, as will SalesForce etc - we do not disclose the content of our customers files to our trusted 3rd parties.
Another example would be that Dropbox uses Amazon Web Services to store files of Dropbox team customers who want their files stored in Europe. We require these trusted third party service providers to process data based on our instructions and in compliance with our privacy requirements. Dropbox can’t provide its Services without using these third party service providers, so it’s not possible to opt out of data sharing with all third parties without deleting your account.
Like most major online services, Dropbox personnel will, on rare occasions, need to access users’ file content (1) when legally required to do so; (2) when necessary to ensure that our systems and features are working as designed (e.g., debugging performance issues, making sure that our search functionality is returning relevant results, developing image search functionality, refining content suggestions, etc.); or (3) to enforce our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.
Access to users’ file content is limited to a small number of people. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit access to file content except in these rare circumstances. In addition, we use a number of physical and electronic security measures to protect user information from unauthorized access.
To sum it up, disclosing “your stuff” is not necessarily equal to giving 3rd parties access to view the content of “your stuff”.
I hope this clears things up!
Hello Walter
Thank you, I appreciate the clarification. I will continue using independent file encryption, where appropriate.
