Is SpiderOak HIPAA compliant?
Conditionally: SpiderOak accepts that it acts as a business associate and points to a route for requesting an agreement, but says it supports only 'certain customers' subject to HIPAA, so settle eligibility before you commit.
Applies to SpiderOak encrypted backup and storage. Last reviewed .
Researched and maintained by the CompyMax editorial team to our published standards.
What you must do
- Request the business associate agreement through the route SpiderOak publishes on its HIPAA page, and get eligibility confirmed in writing: the page says it 'supports certain customers' subject to HIPAA rather than offering the agreement generally.
- Establish which product the agreement covers. SpiderOak's line-up spans consumer backup and enterprise security products, and they are not the same offering.
- Plan key custody before migrating. As with any zero-knowledge store, the encryption that makes it suitable also makes lost keys unrecoverable.
- Keep patient data out of any share link or public folder feature, and review who holds device-level access to synced copies.
- Record the agreement and its scope in your vendor register with the date it was executed.
Does SpiderOak sign a business associate agreement?
Yes. SpiderOak offers one. Not stated. SpiderOak names no plan, and qualifies its support to 'certain customers'. SpiderOak's HIPAA page points to information on how to request a SpiderOak business associate agreement. Confirm eligibility for your account and product before relying on it.
What this means in practice
SpiderOak's HIPAA page spends most of its length explaining the regulation and comparatively little stating its own position. The two sentences that commit to anything are that it supports certain customers subject to HIPAA, and that a route exists to request an agreement. 'Certain customers' is a real qualifier and should be treated as one: it is not the same as an offer.
The product question matters as much as the contract question. SpiderOak's range spans consumer backup and enterprise security tooling, and an agreement covering one says nothing about the other. Establish which product line your subscription actually sits in before assuming coverage follows the company name.
How organizations get this wrong
- Reading 'supports certain customers' as 'supports customers'. Get eligibility confirmed for your account specifically.
- Assuming the agreement follows the brand rather than the product line you bought.
- Migrating a records archive into a zero-knowledge store without deciding who holds the recovery keys.
- Relying on a request route without checking it still resolves: it did not when this entry was written.
What the agreement does not cover
- Customers SpiderOak does not accept. Its own wording limits support to certain customers.
- Any SpiderOak product the executed agreement does not name.
- Data whose keys are lost, which the design makes unrecoverable.
Keep a record of your SpiderOak agreement
Sources
- HIPAA compliance at SpiderOak: SpiderOak. Read August 24, 2026.
SpiderOak can change these terms at any time. If something here no longer matches what SpiderOak tells you, tell us.