Is Sourdough Tracker subject to the CLOUD Act?

No. The CLOUD Act compels US-based companies (or US subsidiaries) to hand over data they control, regardless of where it physically lives. Sourdough Tracker has no US entity, no US contracts, and no US-controlled infrastructure in the data plane. Stripe processes payment data and is US-headquartered, but that boundary is well-defined: payment metadata only, never your records.

Where exactly is my data stored?

On dedicated servers we operate ourselves, physically located in Germany. The audit log, attachments, embeddings - everything in the data plane - lives there. Backups stay within the same EU jurisdiction in different physical locations and roll off on a 30-day window. We deliberately do not name the exact data centre - knowing the rack does not buy the customer anything and would make operator changes a public event.

Do you log IPs or session metadata to a US service?

No third-party analytics, no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no third-country tag manager. The first-party device + session ledger lives in our own Postgres + Redis - same EU boundary as the rest of the data plane. Logs are operational only and rotate at 30 days.

What happens if I'm a customer outside the EU?

You can use Sourdough Tracker from anywhere. The data still lives in the EU; the request travels from your location to our servers and back. That's a posture choice on our side, not a geo-restriction on yours.

Sourdough Tracker

Compare

Sourdough Tracker: the EU alternative to Camera roll

Same job, hosted in the EU. Sourdough Tracker runs in Germany under German law - your data stays in EU jurisdiction end to end.

EU alternative

Comparison

Photos

Finn GlasCo-Founder + Engineering

·January 1, 2026·

1 min read

If your reason for moving off Camera roll is data sovereignty, the comparison gets simpler. Sourdough Tracker is hosted in Germany on infrastructure we operate ourselves - no US-headquartered company in the request path. The CLOUD Act does not reach what physically lives here.

At a glance

Photos of starters at peak are the most accurate journal you already keep - they're just not labelled and not searchable. Sourdough Tracker doesn't replace your camera; it just gives each photo a home next to the entry it belongs to. Six months in, your camera roll has 200 photos of jars and you can't tell which feed each one was; the journal has 200 photos attached to feeds, with rise % and ambient temp next to each.

EU jurisdiction

What 'EU-hosted' actually means here, end to end

Sourdough Tracker runs on dedicated machines we operate ourselves, physically located in Germany. There is no US-headquartered subprocessor in the request path - the data plane (your records, your files, your audit log) lives entirely in EU jurisdiction. Two third parties exist outside that boundary: Stripe (payment information only, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework) and the mail relay for transactional email. Neither sees your records. Camera roll's setup is the variable - if their primary infra is US-based, the CLOUD Act applies regardless of what their privacy page claims.

Sourdough Tracker vs Camera roll: EU comparison

	Ours Sourdough Tracker	Theirs Camera roll
Photos in chronological order
Labelled with rise %, hydration
Filterable by starter
Compare two bakes side-by-side		DIY
Survives a phone replacement		If you sync

When to pick which

Pick Sourdough Tracker when

You want to look at last September's bake to compare to today's.

Pick Camera roll when

You bake once and snap one photo - any tool works.

EU-jurisdiction questions

Specific to where the data lives, who can subpoena it, and what crosses borders.

Start with Sourdough Tracker

Free plan, no credit card. We host in Germany. Export + delete are self-serve.

Written by

Finn Glas

Co-Founder + Engineering

Finn is one of the Co-Founders. He owns the engineering side, the infrastructure, and most of the late-night fixes that ship before anyone notices.

finn.glas at aicuflow dot comLinkedIn Website