Elevator Software Data Security: Questions to Ask

Published October 10, 2026 · Last updated October 10, 2026 · 9 min read

elevator software data security

Where Your Elevator Data Lives: Security Questions to Ask a Software Vendor

By Mr. Sujit Katariya, ElevatorPlus · Reviewed by Mr. Sumeet Katariya

In short: Elevator software data security comes down to five questions you can put to any vendor in writing. Where is our data hosted, and can it stay in our country? Who inside our company can see what? How often is it backed up, and how fast can you restore it? Do we need anyone else's licence to run your product? Can we take everything with us when we leave? A vendor that answers all five plainly, in a paragraph each, has usually thought about the rest.

Key takeaways

Your service records are more than job notes. They hold building addresses, key safe codes, property manager phone numbers and where your mechanics are during the day.
Hosting location is a contract term. Ask which country and region your data sits in, and whether it can stay in-country when a customer or a regulation requires it.
The everyday risk sits inside your own company. A former dispatcher with a live login, or a mechanic who can open every building's access notes, is a more likely problem than an outside attack.
A backup you have never seen restored is a promise, not a plan. Ask how often backups run, how far back they go and how long a restore takes.
Exit is part of security. If you cannot get a complete export when you leave, the vendor holds your service history, not you.

What this guide covers: what data a vendor holds · where it is hosted · who can see what · backups and restores · what sits underneath the platform · getting your data out · the questions to send · how ElevatorPlus answers them · a note for UK lift companies · FAQs

What elevator data does a software vendor actually hold?

More than most owners picture when they sign.

Elevator service software holds the commercial side of your business and the physical side of your customers' buildings. If you are still deciding what this category should cover, start with What Is Elevator Service Software? A Straight Answer, then come back to the security questions.

Data	Example	Why it needs protecting
Buildings and units	Addresses, unit IDs, machine room and pit locations	Tells a stranger exactly where the equipment is
Access notes	Key safe codes, lobby fob holders, after-hours contacts	Physical access to a customer's building
Customer contacts	Building owner, property manager, superintendent phone numbers	Personal data, and your customer list
Maintenance agreements	Terms, rates, renewal dates	Your commercial position in a competitor's hands
Service history	Maintenance visits, callbacks, entrapments, parts used	Your evidence when a visit is questioned
Mechanic data	Names, phone numbers, location during the day, time records	Personal data about your own team
Photos and signatures	Site photos, customer sign-off on completed work	Images of buildings and of people

The service history row matters most. If you work under ASME A17.1, Section 8.6 calls for written maintenance records for each unit, kept for five years, and it permits those records to be electronic. Once they live in software, the vendor's hosting, backup and exit terms decide whether you can produce them when an inspector or a building owner asks.

Where is your elevator data hosted, and does it matter?

"Cloud" means a data centre run by someone, in a specific country and region. The question is which one, and who decides.

Location starts to matter when a customer writes it into a contract. Hospitals, universities and large property portfolios sometimes state where a supplier may store their data. If your vendor cannot answer, you cannot sign that contract honestly.

Ask four things:

Which country and region is our data stored in? A named region, not "a secure cloud".
Can it be kept in-country if a customer or a regulation requires it? Ask whether this is available now or "on the roadmap".
Who hosts it? The vendor may run on a third party's infrastructure. That is normal. Not knowing who it is is not.
Does our data leave that region for support or processing? Support staff in another country may view records. Ask how that access is controlled.

Who inside your company can see what?

This is the question owners skip. A mechanic does not need to see every building's access notes. Your bookkeeper does not need live technician locations. A dispatcher who left in March should not still have a login in June.

Good software lets you decide access by role, by branch and by action. Here is a sensible starting point for a contractor with one office and a field team:

Role	Should see	Should not see
Mechanic	Their own assigned jobs, the units on them, the checklist	Other mechanics' jobs, agreement rates, customer list exports
Dispatcher	All open callbacks and maintenance visits in their branch	Payroll inputs, agreement pricing
Branch manager	Everything in their branch	Other branches, unless you choose otherwise
Accounts	Customers, agreements, payments due and received	Live technician location
Owner	Everything

Then ask the vendor three questions. Can you set view, create, edit, delete and approve separately for each role? Can one person hold different roles in different branches? And when someone leaves, how quickly can you shut their access, and does that also end access on their phone?

That last one matters in this trade, because mechanics carry company data on a phone in a van.

ElevatorPlus handles this through role-based access control for elevator companies: 100+ configurable roles, with read, create, edit, delete and approve permissions set independently.

What happens if data is deleted or lost?

Disasters are rare. Someone deleting the wrong customer on a Friday afternoon is not.

Ask	A complete answer	A weak answer
How often is our data backed up?	A stated frequency, for example daily	"Regularly"
How far back can you restore?	A stated retention period	"We keep backups"
How long does a restore take?	A stated time, and who you call	"It depends"
Can you restore one record, or only the whole database?	A plain yes or no for each	Silence
Who can ask for a restore?	Named roles on your side	"Any user" or "contact support"

The answer to the fourth question decides how painful a small mistake is. Restoring the whole database to last night undoes a day of everyone's work to recover one deleted building.

What sits underneath the platform?

Some products in this category are built on top of a general ERP, CRM or field service platform. That is not a security flaw in itself. But you may need a licence from that platform to keep running, and if it lapses or its price changes, your access to your own records is tied to a company you never signed with.

Ask one plain question: do we need a licence from anyone other than you to run this, and to keep reading our data?

Can you take all of your data with you when you leave?

Security includes getting out. Your maintenance records outlive any software contract, and five-year retention under A17.1 Section 8.6 is longer than many software contracts run.

We wrote a full guide to what a complete data export should include when you leave a vendor: formats, attachments, signatures and the exit clause itself. The short version for this checklist is two questions. Can we export everything, including photos and signatures, without asking you? And in what format, within how many days, at what cost?

👉 Want to see how access, branches and exports are set up for a US elevator contractor? See elevator service software for US contractors →

The questions to send every vendor

Send these to every vendor on your shortlist and keep the written replies with the contract.

#	Question	What a straight answer includes
1	Which country and region is our data stored in?	A named country and region
2	Can our data be kept in-country if required?	Yes or no, and whether it is available today
3	Who hosts the platform, and does data leave that region for support?	The hosting provider and how support access works
4	Can we set view, create, edit, delete and approve permissions per role?	Yes or no, and an example role
5	Can access be limited by branch?	Yes or no
6	How do we remove a leaver's access, including on their phone?	The steps and how long they take
7	How often is data backed up, and how far back can you restore?	A frequency and a retention period
8	Can you restore a single record?	Yes or no
9	Do we need any other company's licence to run this or read our data?	Yes or no, and whose
10	Can we export all our data, with attachments, when we leave?	Format, timescale and any charge

"Bank-grade security" is not an answer to question 1. Ask again.

How does ElevatorPlus answer these questions?

Here is our own answer sheet, so you have one filled-in example to compare against.

Question	ElevatorPlus answer
Hosting	ElevatorPlus runs on Amazon AWS. In-country hosting is available where data residency is required. Uptime: 99.9% SLA.
Encryption	Data at rest is encrypted using AES-256. Data is encrypted in transit.
Testing	ElevatorPlus runs vulnerability scanning and penetration testing on every release.
Certifications	ElevatorPlus is targeting ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certification by Q1 2027. These are targets on our internal roadmap, not current certifications.
Agreements	A Non-Disclosure Agreement and Data Processing Agreement are signed as standard with every ElevatorPlus contract.
Data practices	GDPR-aligned practices.
Backups	Daily backups.
Access by role	100+ configurable roles. Read, create, edit, delete and approve permissions are set independently.
Logins and leavers	Two-factor authentication is available for all accounts, enforced where required. Remote and forced logout: sessions are terminated automatically when an account is disabled.
Activity log	Every user action is logged with user identity, device, timestamp, and old and new values.
Access by branch	Users can hold different roles in different branches. Branch managers see their branch, head office sees every branch, and field technicians see only their assigned jobs.
Software underneath	No third-party licence is required to run ElevatorPlus.
Exit	A complete export of your data when you leave.
Connections to other tools	An open API. Tally is live, and QuickBooks and Xero connect through the API, built by your accounting vendor, in house, or by us at a mutually agreed cost.

Hosting, encryption, testing and agreements are set out in full on our data security page. Branch-level access is described on our multi-branch elevator management page, and connections to other tools on the integrations page. If your customers send you a longer security questionnaire, bring it to the call and we will answer each line in writing.

A note for UK lift companies

The same questions apply to a UK lift company, with two differences.

First, the records at stake include your service visit history and the Reports of Thorough Examination you hold for each lift. Those reports and the defects they record are the documents a managing agent or insurer asks for. Make sure the export in question 10 covers them, with attachments.

Second, you are likely to hold personal data on residents, managing agents and your own engineers. Ask your vendor how its practices line up with GDPR, and ask your own adviser what that means for your business as the company that collected the data.

Frequently asked questions

1. What security questions should I ask an elevator software vendor?

Where our data is hosted, who in our company can see what, how often it is backed up and how fast it can be restored, whether we need any other company's licence, and whether we can export everything when we leave.

2. Where should elevator software data be hosted?

In a named country and region you know. If a customer contract or a regulation requires data to stay in-country, confirm the vendor can do that today.

3. Who should be able to see building access codes?

Only the people who need them for a job. A mechanic should see the access notes for their own assigned jobs, not every building in your book.

4. How often should elevator software be backed up?

Ask for a stated frequency, such as daily, plus a retention period and a restore time. Also ask whether a single deleted record can be restored on its own.

5. What happens to our elevator data if we stop using the software?

That depends on the contract. Agree the export format, the timescale, whether attachments and signatures are included, and any charge, before you sign.

6. Does ElevatorPlus offer in-country hosting?

Yes. In-country hosting is available where data residency is required. ElevatorPlus also runs daily backups and follows GDPR-aligned practices.

7. Does ElevatorPlus need a third-party licence?

No. No third-party licence is required to run ElevatorPlus.

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Most security conversations with software vendors run backwards. The buyer asks about things they cannot judge and skips the questions they can.

You can judge a named hosting region. You can judge whether a mechanic sees one building's access notes or all of them. You can judge whether a vendor will restore one deleted record or only last night's database. And you can judge an exit clause.

Ask the ten questions in writing. The vendors who answer them plainly are the ones who have already been asked by a customer who cared.

👉 Bring your security questions to the call. Book the Revenue Leak Walk-Through →