Infrastructure Overview

Last Updated: 2026-02-12


Data Center Location#

All cloak.business infrastructure is hosted exclusively in Germany, European Union. This guarantees full EU data residency for all customer data, with no data transfers outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

AttributeDetail
LocationGermany, EU
Data center certificationISO 27001:2022 certified facility
Data residencyAll processing and storage within Germany
JurisdictionSubject to GDPR and German federal data protection law (BDSG)

Architecture#

cloak.business uses a microservices architecture with dedicated services for each processing function. This design provides isolation between components, independent scaling, and fault containment.

Core Services#

ServiceFunction
Analysis ServiceDetects PII entities in submitted text using pattern-based recognizers and NLP models
Anonymization ServiceApplies anonymization operators (replace, redact, hash, encrypt, mask) to detected entities
Image Processing ServicePerforms OCR text extraction and PII redaction on uploaded images
Structured Data ServiceProcesses structured data formats (CSV, spreadsheets) for PII detection and anonymization
Web ApplicationServes the user-facing web interface with server-side rendering
API GatewayHandles MCP and programmatic API access with authentication and rate limiting

Design Principles#

  • Service isolation -- Each processing service runs independently; a failure in one does not affect the others
  • In-memory processing -- Submitted text and images are processed in server memory only; no customer content is written to disk
  • Stateless processing -- Analysis and anonymization services do not maintain state between requests
  • Encrypted communication -- All inter-service and external communications use encrypted channels

Request Limits#

The Analysis Service enforces backend request limits to prevent resource exhaustion and ensure fair usage across all clients.

LimitValue
Entity types per request250
Custom recognizers per request50
Regex patterns per recognizer10
Context words per recognizer30
Total regex patterns per request200

Requests exceeding these limits receive a validation error. Limits are discoverable via the /limits API endpoint.


Availability#

MetricTarget
Uptime SLA99.9%
Planned maintenanceScheduled outside peak hours with advance notice
Health monitoringAll services continuously monitored with automated health checks (5-minute interval, 15-second timeout)
Auto-recoveryServices automatically restart on failure with configurable restart delay

Backups#

AspectDetail
ScheduleAutomated daily backups
RetentionMultiple retention periods for different data categories
EncryptionBackups are encrypted at rest
Recovery testingBackup restoration procedures are tested regularly
ScopeDatabase, configuration, and application state

Note: Submitted text and images are never backed up because they are processed in memory only and not stored.


Monitoring#

CapabilityDescription
Service health checksContinuous automated monitoring of all services
Performance metricsResponse times, throughput, and resource utilization tracked
Error alertingAutomated alerts for service errors, failures, and anomalies
Security monitoringAccess logging, intrusion detection, and anomaly detection
Uptime monitoringExternal availability monitoring with notification on downtime

Monitoring operates 24/7 with automated alerting to ensure rapid response to any issues.


Security#

Network Security#

  • Encrypted connections -- All external traffic is encrypted using TLS 1.2/1.3 with ECDSA certificates, forward secrecy (X25519/ECDHE), and modern AEAD ciphers only (AES-256-GCM, CHACHA20-POLY1305)
  • Firewall protection -- Network-level access controls restrict traffic to authorized services only
  • DDoS mitigation -- Protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks
  • Service isolation -- Backend processing services are not directly accessible from the public internet

System Security#

  • Regular patching -- Security updates are applied promptly to all system components
  • Hardened configuration -- Systems are configured following security best practices with unnecessary services disabled
  • Access control -- Administrative access is restricted and requires strong authentication
  • Audit logging -- All administrative actions and security events are logged

Application Security#

  • Input validation -- Comprehensive validation and sanitization of all user inputs, with Pydantic model constraints and backend-enforced request limits
  • Authentication -- Secure password hashing, optional multi-factor authentication, cryptographically signed session tokens
  • Rate limiting -- Per-endpoint rate limiting prevents abuse (60 req/min API, 5 req/s auth endpoints)
  • Content security -- Full Content-Security-Policy with nonce-based script sources, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, HSTS with preload, Permissions-Policy, COEP, CORP, COOP headers
  • Penetration tested -- Regular external pentesting with industry-standard tools (nmap, testssl.sh, nikto, sqlmap, nuclei)

NLP and AI Models#

All AI and machine learning models used by cloak.business run entirely on our own servers in Germany. No customer data is sent to any third-party AI provider.

AspectDetail
Model hostingAll models hosted on cloak.business infrastructure
Third-party AI servicesNone -- no data sent to external AI/ML providers
NLP enginesMultiple NLP engines for named entity recognition across languages
OCR engineText extraction from images with support for 37 languages
Model updatesModels are updated on our servers; no external API calls during processing

This self-hosted approach ensures that:

  • Customer text is never transmitted to external model providers
  • Processing latency is minimized (no external API round-trips)
  • Data residency guarantees are maintained end-to-end
  • The platform remains fully operational independent of third-party AI service availability

Updates and Maintenance#

PracticeDetail
Security patchesApplied promptly upon release; critical patches applied within 24 hours
Platform updatesRegular feature and improvement releases
Dependency managementThird-party libraries monitored for vulnerabilities and updated as needed
Change managementAll changes follow a documented change management process
Rollback capabilityDeployment procedures support rapid rollback in case of issues

Compliance#

The infrastructure is designed and operated to support compliance with:

  • ISO 27001:2022 -- Information Security Management System certification
  • GDPR (EU) 2016/679 -- General Data Protection Regulation
  • BDSG -- German Federal Data Protection Act
  • EU Data Residency -- All data remains within Germany/EU

Document maintained by cloak.business Contact: support@cloak.business