How to receive confidential files from clients safely

Many businesses ask their clients for documents you would rather not leave lying around: a copy of a passport, payslips for a mortgage, a medical file, a signed contract. A lot of thought goes into sending files. Much less goes into receiving them, even though that is exactly where the most sensitive data comes in.

Below are the usual options, what they do well and where they fall short.

Email attachments

Email is the easiest route, because everyone has it. But it has three well known problems.

• Size. Scans and photos quickly become too large, and the client starts splitting files or looking for another service.
• No end to end encryption. An attachment travels from mail server to mail server and sits there in readable form, along the way and on arrival.
• Copies everywhere. Afterwards the attachment is in the client’s sent items, in your inbox, often in a shared mailbox and in backups. Finding out where an ID copy still lives becomes a search.

Transfer services such as WeTransfer

WeTransfer is a European company based in Amsterdam, and it is quick and simple for a one-off transfer. For large files it is far more pleasant than email.

It is, however, made mainly for sending files, not for receiving them. The client has to decide which service to use and which address to send to, and the files sit for a while on another party’s systems. For holiday photos that is fine. For a file containing a national ID number and medical details, you would rather decide yourself where it ends up.

A shared folder with an upload link

Many storage services let you share a folder others can upload to. That solves the size problem, and the files land straight in your own environment. Do check a few things: does the link stay active afterwards, can the uploader see what others uploaded, and who cleans up the folder? In practice a forgotten upload link is an open door.

A dedicated intake page

The fourth option is a page on your own address that exists only to receive files. The client opens it, picks files and sends them, without an account or an app. Set up properly, this is the safest route, because receiving is its only purpose and its settings are built around that.

A short checklist

Whatever you choose, go through these points:

1. No account for the sender. Every extra hurdle pushes the client back to plain email.
2. Encryption before upload. Preferably in the sender’s browser, so the files are unreadable in transit and on the server.
3. The right colleague receives it. Not a general inbox everyone can look into, but the person handling the case.
4. Automatic deletion. Decide after how many days a file should go, and let that happen by itself.
5. An audit trail. Who delivered what and when, and who collected it.
6. Data in the EU. Preferably with a provider that is not subject to foreign laws such as the US Cloud Act.

The GDPR in brief

Two principles from Article 5 of the GDPR apply directly. Under data minimisation you only ask for what you really need: sometimes an ID copy with the national number masked is enough. Under storage limitation you keep data no longer than necessary. An attachment sitting in five mailboxes for years does not fit that well. If files go to a service outside the EEA, also read what the GDPR says about transfers.

Whatever you do need to keep after receipt belongs in your case file or document management. The intake channel itself should empty out.

How Binadit Receive handles this

Binadit Receive is such an intake page on your own address. Clients hand over files without an account or app. Files and file names are encrypted in the sender’s browser before they leave, the right colleague gets them, and after a retention period of 1 to 30 days they are deleted. Everything runs on servers in the Netherlands, from a Dutch company. Receive comes with Binadit Drive, where you keep the documents you do need to hold on to. If you currently use WeTransfer or Cryptshare, also take a look at the European alternative to WeTransfer.