“We want Secure Document Sharing.” This was the question Terrascan asked us when they contacted us.
Terrascan is a leading Dutch company specializing in soil investigation and remediation guidance. With independent research, the company helps to identify the soil quality for clients and supervises the remediation of any contamination. One such collaboration is with Schiphol Airport, where Terrascan is investigating the soil quality at and around the airport site.
These types of projects involve the exchange of large amounts of sensitive data, from high-resolution aerial photographs to construction drawings and technical reports. It is crucial that these files are shared securely, controlled and compliantly, both internally and with external partners.
Securely share documents with clients
For that reason, Terrascan chose Msafe Secure File Sharing. Msafe allows the team to easily share large files with partners such as Schiphol without compromising on data security or ease of use. The solution provides complete control over who has access to what files, including audit logs and multi-factor authentication.
“We work with confidential data for our clients, which we want to handle securely” says Michel van der Riet, Senior Project Manager at Terrascan. “With Msafe, we know for sure that our files only end up with the right people, even in complex collaborations with large parties. And the best part is: it works quickly and easily”
Secure document sharing vs. Collaboration
Why secure file transfer is different from ‘collaborating in the cloud’
Organizations such as Terrascan and Schiphol operate in complex ecosystems: joint ventures, international chains, supplier networks, shared service centers. One file can easily have ten parties connected to it legally, operationally and IT-wise.
This makes one question increasingly pressing: how do you securely share sensitive documents with other complex organizations without losing control of compliance?
Many companies automatically reach for collaboration platforms: Teams, SharePoint, Google Drive. Useful for internal collaboration, but less suitable as a formal channel for exchanging confidential information between two companies with their own governance, risk appetite and regulators.
Therein lies precisely the distinction between collaboration tools and a specialized secure file transfer solution such as Msafe.
Two organizations, two governance models
When two complex organizations work together, multiple worlds intersect:
- different legal entities;
- own policies for retention periods, logging and classification;
- diverse requirements of regulators and auditors.
In a collaboration environment, those boundaries quickly blur. Who owns the document? Who is allowed to forward it? Which logs are leading in the event of an incident? And: who is ultimately responsible if something goes wrong?
With secure file transfer, the premise is different: not “we work together in one environment,” but “we transfer controlled information from our governance to yours.”
“Thanks to Msafe, Terrascan can now work securely and efficiently with all its clients, within the framework of European privacy and security directives. This keeps the focus where it belongs: on innovation, quality and precision.”
Msafe as a controlled transfer layer
In that model, Msafe acts as a kind of digital transfer layer between two complex organizations:
- the sending party determines what is shared, with whom and under what conditions (temporary, one-time, per project, per file);
- the receiving party receives the document in a secure manner, without having to enter the other party’s internal system;
- both parties have a complete audit trail of the transfer: who sent, opened, re-downloaded or revoked what when.
Important: Msafe does not replace a collaboration platform, but captures the formal document transfer the moment information crosses an organizational boundary. That’s where the biggest compliance risk is, and that’s exactly where secure file transfer adds value.
