empower® security and privacy overview

empower® Express is hosted securely on Microsoft Azure (click here to learn more), and is managed by our development partner, empower® GmbH—a certified Microsoft Partner and the creators of the world’s most widely used PowerPoint content management solution, empower® (learn more here).

Our firm, Right Aligned (more about us here), serves as empower® GmbH’s design and deployment partner, responsible for pre-sales support, implementation, training, and ongoing content library administration for empower® Express clients.

Your empower Express contract is made between you (or your firm) and Right Aligned Limited.

Authentication and Security

User access to empower® Express is governed by the security protocols of Microsoft Entra ID. Before a user can access any part of the empower® Library, they must authenticate via Microsoft’s secure identity framework. The authentication process follows these steps:

1. The user provides a Microsoft 365-compliant email address.
2. Our admin team adds this email to our Entra ID tenant, which triggers a verification email inviting the user to log in.
3. Upon login, the user confirms their credentials via the standard Microsoft sign-in dialogue.
   • If multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled on the user’s Microsoft account, they are prompted to verify their identity using Microsoft’s two-step process, which includes:
     i. Downloading the Microsoft Authenticator app
     ii. Verifying via push notification or a verification code sent to their mobile device
4. Once authentication is successful, the user is granted read-only access to generic, non-sensitive content provided in our database.
5. For new client organizations, we create a dedicated group within Microsoft Entra ID and assign the appropriate users.
6. Permissions within empower® Express are managed at the folder level using either Entra ID groups or individual user access. As a best practice, we manage folder access via group assignments.
7. We then establish your company’s private folder structure with the following access rights:
   • Editable folders accessible only by your authorized users and our admins (for support purposes only):
     • A central folder to store complete presentations, slides, and PowerPoint content
     • An elements folder for individual slide components
     • A template folder for your corporate slide templates
   • Read-only folders containing shared, non-confidential resources (e.g. sample charts, tables, icons, flags, maps, etc.)

 In Summary:

• Your empower® Express environment is logically siloed from other organizations
• You control who adds, removes, edits, and can access your content. 
• Access permissions can be granted, modified, or revoked at any time via Microsoft Entra ID
• Administrative access is strictly limited to three members of the empower Express team and at most two technical support team members at empower® GmbH

We would be happy to arrange a call to address any questions you may have regarding the security model or platform setup.

If you would like to know more about empower Express Security, Compliance, or privacy, you can consult our Information Security Portal 

The portal is designed to answer the most basic of IT InfoSec type questions for an initial security review, Click here to access the Security Portal. 

Please note this is a password-protected site. Please email support@empower.express for the password.

ISO certificate

(empower GmbH is ISO 27001 certified. Right Aligned Limited is not)

The ISO27001 certificate controls the development, provisioning, and support of technologies for marketing and sales management. empower® fulfils the international standards.

See empower GmbH's website for more details: https://www.empowersuite.com/en/about-us/security-at-empower

Certified Microsoft Partner

(empower GmbH is a Certified Microsoft Partner. Right Aligned Limited is not)

empower® is Office 365 certified and participates in the Microsoft Compatibility Lab, ensuring that our software is always compatible with the most recent MS Office updates.

https://www.empowersuite.com/en/about-us/microsoft-partnership

EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

(Right Aligned Limited and empower GmbH fully comply with all European GDPR regulations)

empower® allows customers the necessary flexibility to adapt services to their organizational needs in order to comply with local data protection legislation. We are fully GDPR compliant.

https://www.empowersuite.com/hubfs/Marketing/Website/pdf%20documents/General-DPA-empower.pdf

Microsoft Azure Cloud Solution

(If you have an empower Express Full or Mac subscription, your data in the empower Library is stored in the Microsoft Azure Netherlands Data Center

empower® backend and web apps are hosted on Microsoft Azure Resources (Azure VMs, Azure SQL, AKS, etc.). Data is stored inside the Azure Platform (PaaS). Microsoft Azure is certified with ISO 27001 and PCI DSS among other.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/explore/trusted-cloud/