Reference letters. Clear. Fair. Compliant.
Trust Center · data security

Data security is not a marketing promise

ISO/IEC 27001 certified. Hosted in Switzerland. Secure by design. Audited, documented, verifiable — because personnel data is too valuable to rely on good intentions.

  • ISO/IEC 27001 certified
  • Swiss data location · revFADP-compliant
  • Six-monthly penetration tests
What we build security on

The four pillars of our Trust Center

ISO/IEC 27001 certified

ZeugnisPilot is operated within the ISO/IEC 27001-certified information security management system (ISMS) of rhyno solutions AG — audited by an accredited Swiss body. The certification covers all processes around development, operations, data processing and incident management.

Hosted in Switzerland

All data — personal master data, reference drafts, AI processing — stays in Switzerland. We use exclusively Swiss data centres with ISO 27001 and FINMA-compliant standards. No data transfer into EU or US data spaces.

Secure by design

Security is not bolted on afterwards: threat modelling before each feature release, mandatory code review, dependency scans in CI, pen tests by an external provider every six months. Security assumptions are documented in the code and made verifiable.

Data protection under FADP & GDPR

Full conformity with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP) and the EU GDPR. Data Processing Agreement (DPA) on request. Data protection impact assessment documented per module. No profiling, no transfer to third parties without explicit consent.

Background

Why ISO 27001 is mandatory today

Personnel data is the most sensitive category of data outside health and financial data. A work reference contains assessments of people, their career development, strengths and development areas — content that, in the wrong context, can have professional and personal consequences. Anyone working as an HR-software vendor with such data who cannot demonstrate at least ISO 27001 should no longer be awarded a contract today.

ISO/IEC 27001 is the international standard for information security management. Certification means: an independent auditor has reviewed and confirmed that the company runs a systematic, documented, lived security management — from risk analysis through access control to incident handling. It is not a logo you stick on a website: it is an audit report with named auditors, scope and a re-audit obligation.

For you as a customer that means: when the next IT audit, data protection impact assessment or supplier due diligence of your group parent comes up, you have solid evidence instead of vague marketing statements.

What we do, in detail

Concrete technical measures

Encryption in transit

TLS 1.3 with modern cipher suites (HSTS enforced, mixed content blocked). Forward secrecy active. SSL Labs A+ rating.

Encryption at rest

All data at rest is AES-256 encrypted. Sensitive fields (API secrets) are additionally AES-256-GCM encrypted at the application level with a per-tenant key.

Content fingerprint (SHA-256)

Every issued reference receives a cryptographic hash. Manipulation becomes immediately visible via the public verification page.

Audit trail

Who performed which action and when — fully logged (append-only). Cross-tenant access is technically excluded.

Zero-trust sessions

Sessions are short-lived (8 h), httpOnly cookies, sameSite=lax, SECURE flag in production. Token refresh without browser round trip.

Least-privilege architecture

Each component has exactly the permissions it needs — no more. Backend service accounts are read-only or write-restricted, depending on function.

Penetration tests

Six-monthly pen tests by an independent Swiss security firm (OWASP Top 10, auth flows, business logic). Findings are documented publicly and traceably with severity class and remediation date.

Dependency scans

Automatic CVE scans on every build. Critical vulnerabilities cause the build to abort. Weekly Dependabot and Snyk reviews.

Backup & restore

Daily, encrypted backups in a geographically separate Swiss data centre. Restore drills quarterly — tested, not assumed.

Hosting & processing

Swiss data location — and why it matters

"Hosted in Switzerland" is a term that is often used inflationarily. With us, it means: backend, database, backups, verification service and AI processing run exclusively on infrastructure in Swiss data centres with contractual partners subject to Swiss operators. We publish the locations (Cloud Run europe-west6 in Zurich, backups in a second Swiss data centre) and the sub-processor list (see below) transparently.

Even when a sub-processor (e.g. Anthropic for AI processing) is based outside Switzerland, we protect the transfer with additional measures: data minimisation (only what is necessary), no storage at the sub-processor, EU standard contractual clauses and supplementary technical measures in line with the FDPIC guidelines.

Concretely: your employees' master data and reference drafts do not leave Switzerland. The AI sees only the professional content (role, tasks, assessment) — never salary level, date of birth or private address.

Full transparency

Sub-processor list

A complete list of all third parties that process personal data on behalf of ZeugnisPilot. Changes are announced 30 days in advance.

ProviderPurposeRegionDPA
Anthropic (Claude API)AI-supported draft generationEU/US — data is transferred without customer names, no storage at the providerDPA in place
Firebase Authentication (Google)End-user and admin loginEU (europe-west)EU standard contractual clauses + DPA
bexio AGOAuth interface for master dataSwitzerlandData flow exclusively on customer initiative
Cloud Run europe-west6 (Google)Backend hostingSwitzerland (Zurich)EU standard contractual clauses + DPA, Swiss data centre
Firebase HostingStatic frontendCDN global, origin in SwitzerlandDPA in place
Twilio SendGridTransactional email delivery (verification links, workflow notifications)US — DPF-certified (EU-US Data Privacy Framework)DPA via SendGrid Terms; transferred are recipient email, employee name and company name (no reference content)
Incident response

When something does happen

No one can completely rule out incidents. What you can expect, however: a clearly defined process, fast and honest communication, full investigation with documented measures.

1. Detection

24/7 monitoring with alarm thresholds for unusual auth patterns, rate limits, error rates and API latency. SIEM integration in preparation.

2. Containment

Within 30 minutes of confirmation: affected system isolated, access blocked, forensic logging activated.

3. Communication

We inform affected customers within 72 hours of becoming aware — even if the incident has not yet been fully analysed (FADP reporting obligation).

4. Remediation & lessons learned

Root-cause analysis, remediation, technical and procedural measures. Full post-mortem report for affected customers.

Standards we follow

Compliance overview

ISO/IEC 27001Information security
Art. 330a COSwiss work-reference law
revFADP (Switzerland)Data Protection Act 2023
EU GDPRContractual conformity
Swiss Made SoftwareVerified
Trust Center FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Are you actually ISO 27001 certified or merely "compliant with ISO 27001"?
We are actually certified — by a body accredited in Switzerland. The certificate is sent on request and names the precise scope. "Compliant" without an audit record has no legal or commercial value; we see it the same way.
Where exactly does my data reside?
Backend and database: Cloud Run europe-west6 (Zurich, Switzerland). Frontend static hosting: Firebase Hosting with origin in Switzerland, delivery via CDN. Backups: a second Swiss data centre, geographically separate. No data flow to the EU or USA — except the explicitly named sub-processors with safeguards.
Is employee data sent to the AI (Anthropic)?
Yes, for draft generation. We only send the fields that are necessary for the reference (role, tasks, assessment) — not salary, date of birth or address. Anthropic does not store API inputs. Before each submission we transparently show which data is transferred.
What happens in the event of a data protection incident?
You will be informed within 72 hours of becoming aware (FADP reporting obligation). You receive: what happened, which data is affected, what we are doing, what you should do, a post-mortem with measures. No cover-up, no whitewashing.
How fast are critical security updates?
CVE with severity "critical": patch within 24 hours. "High": within 7 days. "Medium": within 30 days. Trackable via our public security page (in preparation).
Who reviews your security independently?
A Swiss security firm carries out penetration tests every six months (OWASP Top 10, auth flows, business logic). We make finding reports available on request under NDA. In addition, an annual ISO 27001 re-audit.
Who has access to my data internally?
Following the need-to-know principle: engineering lead and a second engineer with four-eyes audit. Every access is logged and counter-checked monthly by the Customer Success Lead. No operations activity without a documented reason.
Can I export or delete my data?
At any time. Export as JSON or CSV via self-service in the account management. Full deletion on request within 30 days, with written confirmation. Backup retention max. 90 days after deletion.
Do you offer 2FA / MFA?
Yes — for admin accounts since day 1, for all end-user accounts shortly (TOTP via Firebase). Recommendation: enable 2FA for every account that approves references.
What is your disaster-recovery time?
RTO (Recovery Time Objective): 4 hours for full restart. RPO (Recovery Point Objective): 24 hours — i.e. at most one day of data loss in the worst case. Tested quarterly, not just theoretically.
What we send you

Documents on request

  • ISO/IEC 27001 certificate with scope
  • Data Processing Agreement (DPA) under revFADP and GDPR
  • Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) for processing in the generator
  • Penetration test report (executive summary, detailed report under NDA)
  • Sub-processor list with contract documentation
  • Security architecture document for your IT department

Send your request to hello@zeugnispilot.ch — usually answered within one business day.

Trust is earned — we are happy to earn yours.

Start with the company registration. Within 5 minutes you have an account, full access to the generator and can request the security documentation if needed.