Data Security

The dossier your CISO will request

No connector gets deployed without answering three questions: where the data lives, who can read it, and what remains once the answer is displayed. We address these in the order the mechanisms engage, before covering the legal framework, data location, and daily operations.

Isolation and encryption

Every organization gets a completely isolated environment. Separation starts logically: each customer’s data lives in distinct spaces, protected by dedicated encryption keys, making cross-organization leakage impossible—a query from your team cannot reach another client’s index, even if a routing error occurs. VPC and on-premise offerings add physical separation, running the index on infrastructure dedicated solely to you. This detail unblocks deals where shared hardware alone is enough to trigger a refusal.

Encryption covers the entire lifecycle. Communication between components uses TLS 1.3, while stored indexes and metadata are encrypted with AES-256. Keys are managed by a Key Management System (KMS) with automatic rotation, reducing the exposure window in case of compromise. The Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) option, reserved for Enterprise clients, goes further: you provide your own keys, so revoking access becomes an internal decision rather than a support ticket.

What happens during a query

The encrypted query travels to Mistral servers, where the model interprets it and queries the index. Only results authorized by the user’s permissions in the source systems are returned: a contract they cannot access in SharePoint will not appear in search results either. Once the response is delivered, neither the query nor the results are retained—this is zero retention. Audit logs record the event as metadata, never the content of the consulted documents. You track usage without recreating a parallel database of your sensitive information.

Processing relies on documented legal bases: the organization’s legitimate interest in facilitating access to internal information, a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) signed between your organization and Mistral AI, and an internal agreement with your employees regarding AI tool usage. The DPA governs the relationship with the vendor; the internal agreement governs the relationship with employees.

Individual rights remain exercisable because the index mirrors the sources: a user can identify which data concerning them is indexed, corrections made in the source system propagate to the index, deleting a document removes it from the index, and indexing metadata is exportable for portability. Your record of processing activities fills out without gray areas—purpose: search and synthesis of internal information; categories: professional documents, team messages, and tickets; retention: zero retention for queries, index synchronized with sources; measures: encryption, isolation, and access control.

Where the servers run

The Enterprise Search infrastructure is hosted in Europe, in data centers located in France and Western Europe, with no transatlantic transfer for processing. This point makes the offering acceptable for banking, healthcare, and public administration, where location is mandated, not preferred. The Paris data center, announced in March 2026, adds capacity dedicated to Enterprise clients. The certification process is continuous and relies on recognized standards. SOC 2 Type II audits security, availability, and confidentiality controls; this is the report most procurement departments require before signing. ISO 27001 validates the Information Security Management System, meaning the organization surrounding these controls, not just their existence. HDS certification, currently in progress, concerns health data hosting and is a prerequisite for opening a file with a healthcare facility. Independent firms regularly conduct penetration tests, and their summaries feed into your own vendor risk review.

Who sees what, and what to do when things go wrong

Least privilege applies at every layer: the service account requests only the strictly necessary read permissions, users see only documents they already had rights to in the source systems, administrators access metrics and logs but not conversation content, and Mistral engineers cannot access customer data. Every access is logged—who searched, when, in which sources, and how many results returned. These logs, viewable in the administration console, export to your SIEM.

Then there is the incident scenario. Mistral AI’s response procedure is documented and relies on automated anomaly detection, such as unusual access or abnormal query volumes. Affected clients are notified within 72 hours in compliance with GDPR, and every incident triggers a post-mortem analysis, corrective measures, and transparent communication. Regarding continuity, indexes are replicated across multiple availability zones, failover is automatic in case of failure, configurations and metadata are backed up regularly, and the Enterprise SLA targets 99.9% availability.

Key takeaways

Data isolated by organization, encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit, with BYOK option
Zero retention on queries and results; audit logs keep only metadata
GDPR compliance: DPA, exercisable individual rights, elements ready for your register
European hosting with no transatlantic transfer, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications
Least privilege at all levels, including for Mistral engineers