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By
Date published
February 23, 2026
Australian businesses today operate in an environment where customer data is both a strategic asset and a regulatory responsibility. The same data that powers growth, retention, and operational insight also carries legal, reputational, and financial risk if mishandled.
High-profile breaches increased regulatory enforcement, and growing consumer awareness have shifted expectations. Security is no longer a backend IT function. It is a board-level concern.
For analytics partners working with Australian brands, the question is no longer “Can you build dashboards?” It is “How do you handle our data?”
At Fornax, our answer is simple - We don’t take control of your data. You do.
Over the past few years, expectations around data protection in Australia have changed significantly.
Data security is no longer treated as a secondary concern or a technical afterthought. Businesses are expected to demonstrate clarity around how customer data is handled, where it is stored, and who has access to it.
Customers are more aware of data practices. Organisations are asking deeper questions about infrastructure access and governance before enabling new systems or external collaborators.
Brands that can clearly articulate how their data is governed build confidence. Those that cannot often struggle to earn it.
In this environment, data security cannot live in policy documents alone. It must be reflected in how systems are designed and operated.
Fornax operates strictly as a Data Processor.
We do not host client data.
We do not operate shared infrastructure.
We do not move data into Fornax-controlled environments.
Instead, we design and manage analytics systems inside the client’s own cloud infrastructure.
Data warehouses are provisioned within the client’s cloud account, whether that environment sits on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure.
Platforms such as Big Query or Snowflake are deployed within the client’s tenancy and billed directly to the client.
This structure ensures that ownership, billing control, identity management, and security configuration remain under the client’s authority at all times.
Our access is role-based, limited, and fully auditable.
Data sovereignty in reality is an infrastructure decision.
If an organisation requires Australian data residency, the warehouse is configured in an Australian region, such as Sydney, under the client’s cloud tenancy. No cross-border data movement occurs unless explicitly required and approved.
Because infrastructure resides within the client’s own cloud account, jurisdictional clarity is preserved. Data remains governed by the legal framework applicable to the selected region.
We do not operate proprietary Australian data centres. We enable sovereignty by architecting inside your cloud boundary.
Operational systems such as ERP (eg, NetSuite), Shopify, CRM platforms, and marketing tools connect through secure API-based ingestion pipelines directly into the client-owned data warehouse.
All ingestion, transformation, modelling, and analytics processing occur within the client’s cloud environment.
We do not replicate data into Fornax servers.
We do not create parallel analytics environments outside client governance.
Every query, transformation, and pipeline execution operates within the security perimeter defined by the client’s infrastructure policies.
Access follows the principle of least privilege.
Fornax team members are provisioned named accounts with defined roles inside the client’s cloud identity framework. All activity is logged under the client’s monitoring systems, ensuring full traceability.
Access can be modified or revoked at any time by the client.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is accessed only when required for defined analytical use cases. Where appropriate, we implement architectural safeguards including hashing, masking, dataset segregation, and restricted column-level permissions.
Where possible, analytics models are structured to operate on aggregated or pseudonymised datasets rather than raw identifiers.
The objective is simple: maximise insight while minimising exposure.
Because infrastructure resides within the client’s environment, enterprise-grade cloud security standards apply by default.
We align our implementation approach with Australian security best practices and support IT and compliance teams during architecture reviews, vendor assessments, and regulatory audits.
Security is not something we “add.” It is something we inherit and respect within your infrastructure.
In the Australian market, trust increasingly determines competitive advantage. Customers factor data practices into purchasing decisions. Regulators expect evidence, not assurances. Boards demand clarity around third-party access.
By operating entirely within client-owned infrastructure, Fornax ensures that analytics capability does not introduce additional hosting or jurisdictional risk.
We are not a black-box SaaS platform.
We are not a managed hosting provider.
We are an embedded analytics partner operating under your governance, inside your cloud boundary.
Control remains with you.
Always.
