Impacts Related to the SaaS Value Chain The SaaS value chain includes different actors such as technology suppliers, IaaS and PaaS providers, SaaS providers, their customers, and the end-users of the SaaS services. Several high-level impacts relate to the specificities of this value chain: • Data hosting and localization: With the SaaS model, data is hosted on the SaaS providers’ servers, instead of the servers of the company or government entity using the service. If the SaaS provider does not maintain its own infrastructure, they may also use the servers of other cloud service providers such as, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or Digital Ocean. This model places increased responsibility on cloud providers to secure the data they host and to establish guardrails to protect privacy. That said, providers place most of the responsibility for privacy compliance on their customers. Moreover, the location of these datacenters has contributed to jurisdictional risks. Increas- ingly, governments require cloud providers to host data within their jurisdictions, which has concerning implications for government surveillance and overreach. • Integration with other cloud services: The SaaS model has increased opportunities to integrate different software services with each other—either with services from the same provider, or from other providers. Offering integration to other services through appli- We believe that the SaaS business model presents opportunities for advancing human rights, and the sector should go beyond mitigating the human rights risks to which they may be connected, and to consider how they can promote human rights. 31 Human Rights Assessment of the Software-as-a-Service Sector