software data-protection data-ownership data-storage database
Is requesting a customer database for testing purposes legal?
<p>We're a company working in building industry and have a program, develeoped together with our software vendor, to create quotes and configurate products. The program uses a MS SQL database.</p>
<p>It stores mainly following data (customer created): quotes, created material, prices (extra charge), users with names, company phone numbers, emails, etc., customers (customers of our customer), text modules (cover notes, terms, etc.).</p>
<p>When we release a new version (update) sometimes issues occur which happen only at our customers because they've a different database structure for example or different data.</p>
<p>Therefore my question: is it legal to ask a customer if we can use their database for testing purpose or is it not?</p>

<h3>It's not illegal to ask.</h3>
<p>Whether they can give it to you, and under what circumstances, is another, much more complicated matter.</p>
<p>For instance, if the database contains health information covered by HIPAA in the United States, or personal information covered by laws like GDPR or CCPA, the customer's ability to share the database may be restricted, either requiring additional confidentiality obligations/use restrictions, or preventing sharing entirely.</p>
