Compliance & Security

No. Compliance is a combination of technical architecture (encryption, access controls, audit logs) and organizational governance (employee policies, vendor contracts, data processing agreements, incident response plans). However, robust technical controls are the foundational prerequisite: without automated technical enforcement (like crypto-shredding or tokenization), organizational compliance policies cannot be maintained.

GDPR penalties operate under a two-tiered structure: minor administrative violations can incur fines up to €10 million or 2% of annual global turnover (whichever is higher). Severe infringements - such as violating core data processing principles (Article 5) or data subject rights (Articles 12-22) - can result in fines up to €20 million or 4% of total worldwide annual turnover.

Yes. Using third-party tokenization (like Stripe Elements) drastically reduces your compliance burden (qualifying your architecture for the simplified SAQ A self-assessment), but does NOT exempt you from PCI DSS. Under PCI DSS v4.0 Requirement 6.4.3, merchants are explicitly responsible for monitoring and ensuring the integrity of all client-side JavaScript executing on payment pages.

A SOC 2 Type I report evaluates the suitability of the design of your security controls at a single point in time. A SOC 2 Type II report evaluates both the design AND the operating effectiveness of those controls over a continuous audit observation period (typically 6 to 12 months), requiring ongoing evidence of compliance.

Continuous automated scanning should run weekly or on every deployment, combined with quarterly technical reviews and annual penetration testing.

Automated vulnerability checks and static analysis gates run in CI/CD pull requests, failing builds if critical severity issues are identified.