A secure dataroom is an online collaboration platform that streamlines due-diligence and reduces the timeframe for M&A and deal making while providing complete security. It lets both selling and buy-side teams to manage a transaction’s process from beginning to conclusion in a secure manner.
What distinguishes a secure dataroom from file-sharing sites like Dropbox is the fact that it’s focused on the enterprise and allows users to be separated and permissions to be granted at granular levels. Analytics can also provide information on the usage (e.g. when, how and from where data is accessible. Many have additional features such as the ability to stop downloading and copying (a huge no-no) or even displaying documents on a screen that can’t be screenshotted. Many utilize industry-leading encryption to scramble sensitive information and multi-factor authentication in order to ensure that the user trying to log in is the one who is trying to gain access.
Most secure datarooms allow users to download PDF files for offline viewing. However, if you allow users print these files to physical printers, or allow them to save them to file drivers for different purposes, they are not protected by the same protection that is applied to the original data within the virtual data room.
If you can download these files from a data room or another system, and then view them without having access to the Internet that defeats the purpose of using the data room to store sensitive documents for M&A due-diligence, litigation, compliance and other documentation that is sensitive. The documents must be kept on devices and not transmitted check these guys out to servers. This is why we recommend using a DRM solution that locks files to devices instead of to servers, making it impossible to extract them from devices or share them with others.