Solutions Hub: Data and AI Sovereignty

Keep data and AI inside the boundary you choose

Know where sensitive data lives and where it travels, and run the platform that governs it in-country or fully air-gapped.

BigID maps residency, cross-border flows and third-party access from discovery, applies localization policy, and keeps the evidence regulators ask for. The platform itself stays inside your boundary too: data ringfenced in any of 30+ countries, AI powered by the models you approve, and the full platform, AI and agents included, running with zero outbound connectivity.

See sovereignty on your own estate ▶Watch it work

Where data lives

Residency and transfers, mapped from discovery

Sensitive and personal data located by region, with every flow to another jurisdiction and every vendor that can reach it

Where BigID runs

The whole platform, AI included, fully air-gapped

The same build as ringfenced SaaS in 30+ countries, with AI, agents and reporting running on zero outbound connectivity

Whose models

Your approved models power the AI

Classification and data intelligence run with no dependency on an external LLM, and no data or metadata sent to one

Why sovereignty now includes AI

Sovereignty now reaches the AI, and the tools that govern it

European regulators have spent a decade asking where personal data goes. GDPR transfer rules, the Data Act, DORA, NIS2 and the AI Act now ask the same of models, cloud providers and the security stack itself, and the Commission's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act sets sovereignty levels for public sector procurement. Beyond Europe, CISA's CI Fortify mandate asks critical infrastructure to keep essential services running through weeks of isolation from cloud and third-party connections, and the risk of depending on a single AI vendor is pulling AI itself back inside the boundary. BigID answers both questions on one platform: where your data lives and moves, and where the system that governs it runs. The program draws on data discovery and classification, privacy and compliance, and access governance.

For privacy and the DPO

Transfers you can account for. Residency, flows and safeguards recorded from live discovery, so a transfer impact assessment starts from the real estate and the evidence is ready when a regulator asks.

For security and the CISO

A control plane that stays inside. Configuration, findings, dashboards, keys and audit logs held in your environment, in the country you name, with no phone-home telemetry.

For AI and platform teams

AI governed on your own terms. Models, agents and training data inventoried by region, and BigID's own AI running on the models you have approved, including in disconnected environments.

See it operate

Watch it work

Cross-Border Data Compliance Made Simple | BigID & DOJ EO 14117 Explained

Finding the sensitive data that falls under cross-border rules, where it sits, and which transfers and recipients put it in scope.

DemoWatch on YouTube ↗

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Where the data goes, and where its governance runs

BigID scans each region in place, so data is read where it lives and never copied out to be classified. Flows between jurisdictions are mapped from what discovery finds, and the control plane holding the findings sits in whichever boundary your regulator names.

Air-gapped

The full platform, AI and agents included, with zero outbound connectivity

An air-gapped BigID runs the exact same software as the cloud service. AI classification, data intelligence and agentic workflows run on the model you install inside the network, so the most sensitive environments get every capability, with nothing to call out to and nothing phoning home. BigID stays fully operational through the kind of sustained isolation CI Fortify plans for.

What runs disconnected

The sealed deployment is the full product, operated end to end without a live connection to BigID or to any hosted model.

Discovery and classification across structured, unstructured and mainframe data
AI classification and data intelligence on your approved model, installed locally
AI governance: model and agent inventory, assessments and policy
Remediation, access governance and lifecycle workflows
Natural-language reporting and dashboards
APIs and MCP-based workflows for the agents and copilots running inside the network
Configuration, findings, prompts and audit logs held entirely inside
No phone-home telemetry and no hosted API needed to function

Built for Defense and intelligence Federal and public sector Critical infrastructure Regulated finance Healthcare and life sciences Semiconductor and industrial IP

Sovereign AI

The data, the models and the system governing them, all inside your boundary

Sovereign AI keeps data, processing and governance within a boundary you define: national, organizational or a disconnected network. BigID is built once and deployed anywhere, so discovery, classification, AI governance and agentic workflows run the same way in a sealed environment as they do in the cloud.

Local control planeEverything stays inside. Configuration, scan orchestration, findings, dashboards, APIs, AI prompts and audit logs remain within your environment.

Bring your own modelYour approved models power BigID's AI. Classification and data intelligence run without sending sensitive data or metadata to a third-party model.

Built-in product securityKeys and credentials stay yours. Customer-controlled encryption and key management, credentials in your own vault, and least-privilege scanning.

Automation beyond accessAgentic workflows included. APIs, reporting, policy orchestration and MCP-based workflows for agents and copilots work the same in self-managed and air-gapped deployments.

Deploy as Multi-tenant SaaS Residency ringfenced SaaS, 30+ countries Single tenant Self-managed in your VPC FedRAMP Fully air-gapped on-premises

Start here

Where sovereignty and sovereign AI programs start

Where does our regulated data actually reside? BigID discovers and classifies sensitive, personal and high-value data across cloud, SaaS, on-prem and hybrid sources, and records the region each store sits in and the jurisdictions that apply to it. Residency and data mapping → Which data leaves the EU, and is every transfer covered? Cross-border movement is mapped by the residency of the data and the country it moves to, transfers to high-risk jurisdictions are flagged, and the safeguard behind each transfer is recorded. Cross-border flows → Which vendors, admins and agents can reach data held in-country? BigID maps access to sovereign data for people, service accounts and AI agents, which reach data through the identities they run under, and monitors third-party and vendor access against where the data is allowed to go. Access by jurisdiction → How do we turn localization rules into something enforced? Residency and localization policies run against live findings, exceptions are flagged and routed to an owner, and remediation such as relocation, deletion or tokenization is carried through as a tracked workflow. Localization policy → Which models were trained on EU data, and where do they run? Models, agents and AI pipelines are discovered with the data they train on and retrieve, so each AI system carries the residency of its data and the region it runs in. Sovereign AI governance → How do we keep AI in-region and avoid depending on one AI vendor? BigID shows where each model runs and where its prompts, outputs and retrieval go, keeps agents to data inside the boundary through the identities they run under, and runs its own AI on whichever approved model you choose, so switching vendors changes nothing in governance. Sovereign AI governance → Will the AI features work with no connectivity at all? Classification, data intelligence, AI governance, reporting, APIs and MCP-based agent workflows all run on your approved model inside a disconnected network, with no hosted API to call and no phone-home telemetry. Air-gapped → Can the security platform itself stay inside our boundary? BigID can hold data ringfenced in any of 30+ countries, run single tenant as a deployment flag, or run fully air-gapped with the same software, keeping configuration, findings and audit logs inside. Sovereign deployment → Can we keep data intelligence running if we are cut off from cloud and third parties? An air-gapped BigID keeps discovery, classification, access intelligence and reporting running through sustained isolation, which is the scenario CI Fortify asks critical infrastructure operators to plan and test for. Air-gapped → What do we hand a regulator or an auditor? Audit-ready reports on residency, transfers, access and policy exceptions, with historical evidence of each control, produced on demand from inside your deployment. Evidence and reporting →

Capabilities

From the first residency map to the regulator's question, on one platform

Data sovereignty and sovereign AI draw on the same discovery. BigID finds the data and the AI, knows where each sits and what reaches it, and runs inside whichever boundary the program requires.

Data sovereignty

Where regulated data lives, where it travels, who can reach it, and the policy that holds it in place.

Residency discovery and data mapping

Every sovereignty decision depends on knowing what data sits where. BigID builds the map from discovery, including whose data it is.

See discovery and classification →

Sensitive, personal, regulated and high-value data found across cloud, SaaS, hybrid and on-prem
Region and jurisdiction recorded for every data store and finding
Identity-aware data maps that tie records to the person and the country they belong to
Classification in the languages and formats each region stores data in
Where data is processed recorded alongside where it is stored

Cross-border flows and transfer governance

Residency comes straight from discovery, so BigID can show where regulated data moves, which recipients it reaches, and whether each transfer is covered.

See privacy and compliance →

Cross-border movement mapped by the residency of the data and the country it moves to
Transfers to high-risk or conflicting jurisdictions detected and surfaced
Safeguards recorded for each transfer, for transfer impact assessments
Third-party sharing and vendor transfers mapped with purposes and data categories
Continuous visibility and alerts as new flows appear

Access by jurisdiction and third party

Data can stay in-country and still be reached from outside it. BigID shows who and what can open sovereign data, and flags access that crosses the line.

See access governance →

Access to sovereign data mapped for employees, service accounts and AI agents
Agents assessed through the identities they run under, with the data in their reach
Third-party and vendor access monitored against where the data is allowed to go
Access activity tracked, with unusual behavior flagged for people and agents
Excess access right-sized and stale permissions revoked

Localization policy and remediation

Write the residency rule once and BigID checks the estate against it, routes every exception to an owner, and carries the fix through.

Residency and localization policies aligned to the mandates each region sets
Policy exceptions flagged and routed through workflow to the data owner
Standardized tags that carry residency into the tools that enforce it
AI-guided remediation: relocate, delete or tokenize out-of-policy data
Agentic workflows that investigate an exception and carry the change through

AI and platform sovereignty

The AI the business runs, and the platform governing it, kept inside the boundary the program requires.

Sovereign AI governance

An AI system carries the residency of the data it learned from, and every prompt it answers is another transfer. BigID inventories models and agents with that data, shows where their inference and retrieval happen, and governs them locally.

See AI governance →

Models, agents, copilots and pipelines discovered, sanctioned and shadow
Sensitive data found in AI training and inference, with its residency
Which models trained on what data, and the region each one runs in
Where prompts, outputs and retrieval go, so inference stays in-region
Agents kept to data inside the boundary, through the identities they run under
MCP servers and AI tools found, with the data each one exposes and where it sends it
Model choice left open: BigID's AI runs on whichever approved model you select, reducing dependence on any one AI vendor
AI risk assessments aligned to the EU AI Act and the NIST AI RMF
AI governance applied without a vendor-hosted control plane

Sovereign deployment and operation

One build runs in every mode, so the sovereign deployment is the full product. The control plane, the models and the logs stay where your regulator expects them.

See secure architecture →

Data ringfenced within any of 30+ countries for residency and sovereignty requirements
Single tenant isolation as a deployment flag, on the same software
Fully air-gapped with zero outbound connectivity and no phone-home telemetry
Outposts that process data locally, with no copying and no backhaul
Bring your own approved language model, with no external LLM dependency
Customer-controlled encryption and keys, and credentials in your own vault

Evidence and reporting for regulators

Sovereignty has to be shown as well as held. BigID keeps the history and produces the report from inside your deployment.

Audit-ready reports on residency, transfers, access and policy exceptions
Historical compliance evidence, available at any point in time
Transfer records that feed the RoPA and transfer impact assessments
Every action by a user, system or agent logged under the same access controls
Reports asked for in natural language, from BigID or over MCP, in self-managed and air-gapped deployments

Regulation

The rules a sovereignty program answers to

Most of the pressure comes from Europe, and it now spans personal data, non-personal data, operational resilience and AI. BigID supplies the findings and evidence each one asks for, and the same approach extends to national laws elsewhere.

GDPR transfer rules

Personal data leaving the EEA, mapped to its safeguard, with the records a transfer impact assessment needs

EU Data Act

Non-personal data held in cloud services located and mapped, for portability and for third-country access requests

DORA and NIS2

Sensitive data held by financial entities, essential services and their ICT providers located, with provider access visible and protection evidenced

EU AI Act

AI systems inventoried with their training data, assessed for risk, and documented

Public sector sovereignty levels

A platform that runs in-country or air-gapped, for procurement under the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act

National localization laws

India's DPDP, China's PIPL and Brazil's LGPD, with residency and transfer rules applied per region

CI Fortify

Vital systems and their data inventoried, third-party connections traced and criticality tiered, on a platform that keeps running air-gapped

US Data Security Program

Bulk sensitive data and the countries of concern it could reach, under the DOJ rule implementing EO 14117

Runs across Cloud SaaS On-prem Hybrid, across regions and business units Mainframe AI data stores

Proof

Certified and independently scored for security by design

Certifications and analyst scores

A Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Sensitive Data Discovery And Classification Solutions, Q2 2026, with the highest possible score for secure-by-design commitments, on-premises data source coverage, cloud data source coverage and language support
“BigID is engineered for performance and petabyte scale,” with strengths in discovery that include mainframe environments

Certified and authorized

FedRAMPAuthorized
SOC 2Service organization controls
ISO 27001Information security management
PCI DSSPayment card data security
HIPAAHealth data safeguards
30+Countries for ringfenced residency

Read the Forrester Wave →

From the field

“We needed to automate processes and data management across systems… BigID was the one solution that did this…”

Chief Privacy Officer, Global Telecoms Company

“BigID gives me better visibility into sensitive data, helps prioritize security protections, reduces attack surfaces…”

CISO, Global Healthcare Company

FAQ

What sovereignty leads ask before they sign

How is sovereign AI different from data sovereignty?

Data sovereignty is about where data lives and moves. Sovereign AI adds the models, the AI lifecycle and the systems that govern them, so the controls themselves stay inside the boundary. BigID covers both on one platform, which is why this page brings them together.

Which capabilities does the air-gapped deployment include?

It runs the exact same software, AI included. Discovery, classification, remediation, AI governance, APIs, reporting and MCP-based agent workflows are equivalent in every deployment mode. The AI runs on the model you install inside the network, so nothing depends on a hosted API.

We are moving to a sovereign cloud. What does BigID add?

It shows what the sovereign cloud holds and what leaves it. A sovereign cloud decides where infrastructure runs. BigID finds the regulated data inside it, maps the flows to other regions and vendors, shows who and what can reach it, and deploys inside the same boundary, with the options laid out in secure AI-first architecture.

What is data sovereignty?

Data sovereignty means data stays subject to the laws of the place it is collected or stored. In practice that means knowing where regulated data lives, where it travels, and who can reach it. BigID builds that picture from discovery, then applies localization policy and keeps the evidence, starting from data discovery and classification and privacy and compliance.

Which regulations drive sovereignty requirements?

GDPR transfer rules, the EU Data Act, DORA, NIS2, and the EU AI Act lead in Europe, alongside national laws such as India's DPDP, China's PIPL, and Brazil's LGPD, and the DOJ rule implementing EO 14117 in the United States. BigID supplies the findings and evidence each one asks for, and public sector sovereignty levels and CISA's CI Fortify add requirements for where the platform itself runs.

How does BigID keep AI inside the boundary?

It shows where each model runs and what data it reaches, then governs both locally. BigID inventories models, agents, and AI pipelines with their training and retrieval data, tracks where prompts and outputs go, keeps agents to data inside the boundary through the identities they run under, and runs its own AI on the approved model you choose, including with no outbound connection. AI governance and secure AI-first architecture cover the detail.

Resources

Guides for residency, transfers, isolation and AI inside the boundary

Solution brief / start here

Enforce Data Sovereignty and Reduce Cross-Border Compliance Risk

Discover and classify personal data by residency and jurisdiction, monitor cross-border transfers, apply localization policy, and produce audit-ready reports across cloud, on-prem and SaaS.

Read the brief →

Executive brief A Practical Guide to CI Fortify What CISA's isolation and recovery mandate asks of critical infrastructure operators, and how an air-gapped BigID supports inventory, criticality tiering and recovery. Read the brief → Guide Cross-Border Crackdown: Getting Ahead of DOJ EO 14117 The DOJ rule on transfers of sensitive personal data to countries of concern, and how to find, monitor and document the data in scope. Read the guide → Explainer Sovereign AI, Explained What sovereign AI means for governance, how it differs from data sovereignty, and how every capability runs inside your boundary, air-gapped included. Read the explainer →

Start with a residency and transfer assessment

Bring the regions and the regulators you answer to. We will map where regulated data lives and moves on your own estate, and show the deployment that keeps BigID inside the same boundary.

See sovereignty on your own estate Get a free risk assessment