Security & Trust
How we keep every record safe
One canonical answer for the compliance officer who vets us: how records are encrypted, where they live and how tampering is detected.
1. Encryption
- Encrypted on the device first: During outages, every ticket sits encrypted in browser-isolated local storage using AES-GCM (256-bit keys) derived via PBKDF2. Nothing leaves the site unencrypted.
- PII masked by default: Driver names, licence plates and carrier credentials are encrypted at rest locally and masked on-screen.
- Protected in transit: All API traffic to government endpoints uses TLS 1.3 with strict certificate pinning.
2. UK data residency
- Hosted in the UK, full stop: WasteSync infrastructure and backups run exclusively in Google Cloud Platform's London region (europe-west2). No data leaves the UK.
- Modern, resilient stack: Google Cloud Run, PostgreSQL 16 and Pub/Sub pipelines queue submissions reliably to government APIs.
- Direct to the regulator: Queued tickets upload straight to DEFRA and SEPA API endpoints without third-party intermediary servers.
3. Audit-log integrity
- Tamper-proof by design: Every ticket entry generates a local cryptographic hash (SHA-256) chained to the preceding entry. Any post-hoc manipulation breaks the chain and raises an immediate audit warning. Read more in Beyond Digital Waste Tracking: Building Real Trust in the Fight Against Waste Crime.
- Signed submissions: Every submission is cryptographically signed by the local weighbridge terminal certificate, establishing non-repudiation.
4. GDPR & driver PII
- Minimal, masked, encrypted: Only the driver details the mandate requires are captured. They are encrypted at rest, masked on-screen by default and never used for anything beyond the compliance record.
- Shared devices handled: Kiosk profiles wipe UI sessions after 5 minutes of operator inactivity; encrypted local storage stays intact. Lost tablets can have their device keys revoked instantly from the admin console.
Security questions, answered
Where exactly is our data hosted?
Exclusively in Google Cloud Platform's London region (europe-west2), including backups. No data leaves the UK.
Can records be altered after the fact?
No, not without detection. Each record is hash-chained (SHA-256) to the one before it, so any alteration breaks the chain and flags an audit warning. Submissions are also signed by the terminal's certificate.
Is customer data isolated between sites?
Yes. Strict row-level security policies isolate each customer's data at the database query level, preventing any cross-tenant access.
Do you carry out independent security testing?
Third-party penetration tests are commissioned regularly. Executive summaries of the reports are available under NDA, along with our full security pack and compliance matrix.