Swisscom Opens Swiss Hosted Cloud Service

Swisscom IT Services is launching Docsafe, which is a Swiss cloud storage solution for residential customers that enables them to store their documents online.

Customers can thus access it from any location and at anytime, and can store documents such as receipts by taking a photo with their mobile phone or sending them via e-mail. It enables customers to receive documents and settle bills directly. The service is free, even for users without a Swisscom contract.

A Swiss household on average receives over 200 documents a year. Today, numerous documents from bills, salary statements, contracts and tax documents to receipts and guarantee certificates are stored physically or electronically in various files. Maintaining order and keeping track takes up a great deal of space and time, not to mention being a tedious task, too.

The company has come up with Docsafe. This lets users store and file electronic documents in a central archive, which they can access from their PC, mobile phone or tablet at anytime. Customers can take pictures of paper documents using their mobile phone and store them directly in their personal file via the Docsafe app for iOS and Android. Bills and documents received via e-mail can be forwarded and archived in Docsafe using the forward feature.

Storage in Switzerland and free of charge
The company stores the documents in Swiss data centres in compliance with Switzerland’s data protection laws. Swisscom takes a holistic view of data protection: from a legal, security and process point of view. Each document is encrypted. Optional security elements such as SMS codes offer additional access protection to Docsafe.

It forms the core of Swisscom’s cloud solution for private users, is free and offers enough space to store the documents of an average household. The idea is that this encrypted, unlimited storage can be used free of charge by everyone on a life-long basis.

Residential customers with a Swisscom login for the customer centre can start using the service immediately by logging on with their existing access data. Private users who are not customers can also use it by requesting a Swisscom login and confirming their identity by post or by phone via their fixed-line or mobile from Switzerland. Also available for businesses in the future it is currently in the start-up phase. In the future, companies will also be able to use it to send documents such as bills, contracts or special offers directly to their customers. It speeds up communication, allows interaction between different media and is cheaper than normal post. There are no print, paper or mailing costs. The company already delivers documents to Docsafe for customers who receive their bills via e-mail.