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Sensitive data (Art. 9 GDPR)

Meetings, interviews and uploaded recordings do not always stay on neutral topics. A personnel review can touch on health, a HR interview can reveal trade union membership, a counselling session can capture beliefs or sexual orientation. All of that falls under special categories of personal data in Art. 9 GDPR and needs a stronger legal basis than everyday processing.

Sally is designed to be usable in these contexts. The DPA reflects that explicitly: the controller decides which conversations happen with Sally and which legal basis under Art. 9(2) GDPR applies. On our side, the TOMs are engineered to match the heightened protection needs of special-category data.

What Art. 9 GDPR covers​

Special categories include personal data revealing:

  • Racial or ethnic origin
  • Political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs
  • Trade union membership
  • Genetic and biometric data (when used to uniquely identify a person)
  • Health data
  • Data concerning sex life or sexual orientation

Where these come up with Sally​

  • HR and personnel interviews (absence discussions, return-to-work, disciplinary conversations)
  • Recruitment and hiring (when candidates disclose disability or religious observance)
  • Counselling and coaching (mental health, personal advice)
  • Medical and therapeutic settings (case discussions, patient consultations, insurance calls)
  • Legal, works council and grievance meetings (union topics, discrimination cases)

The controller must choose the correct legal basis. The most common ones in Sally deployments:

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Art. 9(2)(a): Explicit consent
Default for HR, coaching, counselling. Consent must be informed, specific, freely given, and documented. Best combined with a clear pre-meeting notice and an easy opt-out.
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Art. 9(2)(b): Employment, social security and social protection law
For processing required to carry out obligations under labour law (e.g. occupational health obligations) provided the applicable national law authorises it.
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Art. 9(2)(h): Preventive or occupational medicine
Where healthcare providers process patient interactions for care or treatment purposes, under professional secrecy.
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Art. 9(2)(f): Legal claims
For meetings that document a legal dispute or defend a claim.
Sally does not decide the legal basis for you

Assessing Art. 9(2) is always the controller's responsibility. Aliru GmbH acts as processor under Art. 28 and does not evaluate the content of your recordings.

The TOMs that match Art. 9 protection needs​

The technical and organisational measures in Annex 1 of the DPA are deliberately designed for special-category data. The most relevant safeguards:

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Encryption end-to-end
AES-256 for data at rest and TLS 1.3 for data in transit. Encryption keys are held only by Aliru, never by the infrastructure provider.
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Sally's own LLM in Germany
Transcription and analysis run on a language model operated by Aliru on its own infrastructure in Germany. Special-category content is never transferred to an external AI provider.
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Role-based access and strict tenant separation
Only authorised users can access conversation content, and tenants are logically separated. Aliru staff have no access in normal operations.
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Audit-proof logging
Every access, change and deletion is logged. Support access requires a customer-appointed release, is temporary, and is fully traceable.
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Contractual confidentiality
All Aliru employees who could access customer data are bound by a written confidentiality obligation.

How to configure Sally for Art. 9 workloads​

Restrict retention

Set a short default retention for the meeting type. Sensitive recordings should be deleted as soon as the operational purpose is fulfilled.

Disable video where possible

Audio and transcript are usually enough. Turning off video reduces the data minimisation risk under Art. 5(1)(c).

Limit access

Use role restrictions so only participants and authorised HR/legal staff can view the transcript.

Document consent

Keep a written record of the Art. 9(2) basis, especially for consent-based processing. Store it outside the recording itself.

What Sally does not do​

  • No profiling of health, emotion or personality traits. No content is used to build behavioural or emotional profiles.
  • No AI training on customer data. Recordings, transcripts and summaries never enter model training.
  • No biometric identification. Sally does not recognise faces or voices to identify individuals.
  • No third-country transfer. All processing of conversation data happens in Germany.