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Instant messaging has become an integral part of everyday business communication. It’s hard to imagine companies not using chat apps for both internal and external communication. However, as far as the legal grounds for the corporate use of messaging services are concerned, the situation in the EU is tricky. Since almost always personal data is involved, non-compliance with the legal requirements can have drastic consequences.

To shed some light on the matter, we commissioned the renowned FZI Research Center for Information Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany, to conduct a legal study focusing on the situation in the EU and in Germany in particular. The result is a comprehensive report in which the experts thoroughly examine the legal aspects of using chat apps for professional purposes. Based on the final report, the authors have also created a practical guide that helps companies to choose the right messaging service.

The 300-page report as well as the compact guide, both written in German, are publicly available (“open access”). The documents fully represent the authors’ views; Threema didn’t have any influence on the content (cf. press release FZI (German)).

“In our study, we highlight the legal situation for the corporate use of messenger services in order to bring clarity into this complex area and present the legal obligations by means of simple checklists,” says Dr. Manuela Wagner, head of the study.

“We deliberately don’t make recommendations for specific service providers in the study. We weren’t able to examine them in detail since the possible use cases are far too complex,” she adds. “However, one of the conclusions that can be drawn from our work is this: As far as the corporate context in the European Union is concerned, various instant messengers, especially ones developed for personal use, hardly, if at all, meet the relevant legal requirements for data protection or for the protection of trade secrets.”

On November 11, 2021, it-daily.net will hold a digital conference on the topic of the “New Working World.” Because the home office has become a crucial work factor in recent months, both companies and employees have to face a host of new challenges. In five topic clusters, experts from various areas will highlight different aspects of the “New Working World.”

Threema is present with Miguel Rodriguez (Head of Sales) in the topic cluster “Remote Work / Hybrid Working Worlds.” In his talk, Mr. Rodriguez will address shadow IT in the context of instant messaging. Besides highlighting the risks of using chat apps outside of a company’s IT infrastructure, he will make a case for using a secure messaging solution despite already having a collaboration tool in place. You can expect valuable insights as well as an interesting Q&A session with the audience after the talk!

The talk will be held in German, and it will take place on November 11, 2021, from 11 a.m. to 12 noon CET. Attendance is free. For further information about the event, please visit it-daily.net.

Register now!

Threema Web, which has been around for some time, allows you to conveniently use Threema Work from the desktop without compromising security. Now, chatting on the computer gets even more user-friendly.

Thanks to the new desktop app, you no longer need to search for Threema Work in the browser and switch back and forth between tabs all the time. Instead, your business messenger is always at hand in the dock or via the app switcher. Anyone who regularly exchanges text messages on a computer will greatly appreciate this streamlined chatting experience.

The desktop solution is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux starting today. Just like the web client, on which it is based, the desktop app establishes an end-to-end encrypted connection to your mobile device. Of course, Threema Work for desktop covers the complete range of Threema Web’s features.

In terms of security, the desktop client even surpasses the high standard of the tried-and-tested web solution in certain respects. For one thing, there’s no way for browser plugins to introduce vulnerabilities. For another, it would be even more difficult for attackers to manipulate the app code since it isn’t loaded from a server each session but permanently stored on the user’s end.

Get the desktop app for your operating system now:

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There’s hardly a business sector where Threema Work isn’t widely adopted. IT service providers, political parties, and educational institutions rely on Threema Work, just like renowned companies in retail, the hotel business, and in the automotive industry use Threema’s business solution (see Success Stories).

Threema Work is the perfect fit wherever corporate communication has to be fast, straightforward, and secure. In one industry, these requirements apply to particularly high degree: healthcare.

Besides a fast response time and general reliability, data protection and security are crucial factors in medical communication. After all, patient data is inherently personal, and it often contains highly sensitive information. When exchanging such data, strict compliance with data-protection standards is imperative.

With its consistent focus on security and data protection, Threema Work is perfectly suited for professional use in the healthcare sector. It enables organizations such as hospitals, medical practices, clinics, and pharmacies to take full advantage of the many benefits instant messaging provides – without sacrificing data privacy in the process.

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The term “shadow IT” refers to software and hardware used by employees without their company’s knowledge or approval.

One reason for the rise of shadow IT is the increasing number of cloud services, “software as a service” solutions, and messenger apps targeted at consumers. Employees have a plethora of easy-to-use options at their fingertips, and they already know how to use many of them from personal experience. If a process doesn’t run smoothly and no assistance from the IT department is available, employees are tempted to address the problem by resorting to their own tools.

Threema Work is the gold standard of secure messaging apps for organizations. Renowned companies around the globe use the time-tested Swiss chat solution to protect their corporate data and to ensure full data-privacy compliance. With Threema Work, employees enjoy the productivity-boosting benefits of instant messaging without having to resort to questionable chat services that aren’t qualified for corporate use or don’t comply with the GDPR.

Now, Threema OnPrem turns the security and confidentiality of enterprise messaging up to eleven. The new on-premises solution allows organizations that require exceptional security to run Threema on their own server. This translates to complete data ownership along with total and exclusive control over every aspect of the communication tool. Not only the message exchange is carried out internally by the company server, the administration console is also self-hosted, with Threema OnPrem covering the full feature range of Threema Work.

The combination of Threema’s well-established security architecture and absolute data ownership results in a self-contained chat environment that’s second to none in terms of confidentiality. Threema OnPrem instances are completely independent and in no way, shape, or form connected to Threema’s infrastructure. Thus, Threema OnPrem is perfectly suited for professional use in industrial companies, public authorities, law enforcement, and wherever sensitive data is involved or maximum security and utmost confidentiality are required.

Learn more about Threema OnPrem

With the end of the EU–US and Swiss–US Privacy Shield agreements in 2020, the transfer of personal data from Switzerland and the European Union to the US has lost an important legal basis. A year later, many companies are still unsure to which extent their data on US servers is adequately protected from third-party access.

Find out which regulations apply for data transmission to the US right now and which measures help you to reach privacy-compliant communication in your company.

Instant messaging has become an important part of business communications. Excellent availability, unmatched ease of use, and short response times are just a few of its numerous benefits. There is, however, one major challenge for companies: choosing the right service.