Time-Out Zone

GDPR

Time Out Zone is built for GDPR from the infrastructure up: customer data lives in Frankfurt, Germany: database, backups, uploaded files, and the compute that processes them. This article covers residency, data subject rights, retention, and the honest parts about subprocessors.

One framing matters for HR tools: your company is the data controller for employee data; Time Out Zone is the processor acting on your instructions.

Where your data lives

  • Database, backups, and file storage: Supabase, region eu-central-1 (Frankfurt).
  • Application compute: Vercel, region fra1 (Frankfurt).
  • Some supporting services are US-based and openly listed: Clerk (sign-in), Stripe (payments), Resend (e-mail delivery), Sentry (error monitoring). Core absence data stays in the EU.

Access, export, and erasure

  • Export a single person's data or your whole company's data as structured, machine-readable files. Both are admin-assisted actions, rate-limited and written to the audit trail.
  • Erasure is real deletion with cascades (requests, balances, documents, and the sign-in identity), not a hidden flag. Requests are handled within 30 days.
  • Employees route requests through their admin or HR: as the controller, your company decides; Time Out Zone executes.

There is no self-service "download my data" button for employees today: export and erasure run through your admin.

Retention and the paperwork

  • While your account is active, records are kept for the life of the account, including the append-only audit trail.
  • If you close your account, company data is retained for 30 days and then deleted.
  • A Data Processing Agreement (DPA) is available on request, along with the subprocessor list.
  • Privacy policy, terms, and cookie policy are public pages on the website.
GDPR and data residency feature page with the Frankfurt hosting summary

Frequently asked questions

Can I choose a different hosting region?
No. Frankfurt is the region for all customers. For EU companies that is the point; per-customer region selection is not offered.
An employee asked us for their data. What do we do?
As an admin, request the per-person export: you get a structured file covering their profile, requests, and balances. Same path for erasure once your legal retention duties allow it.
Why are there US subprocessors if data lives in the EU?
Sign-in (Clerk), payments (Stripe), e-mail (Resend), and error monitoring (Sentry) are US services handling their slice: identity, card processing, message delivery, crash reports. Your absence records, files, and backups stay in Frankfurt. We list this instead of hiding it.

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