Proofpoint Expands EU Data Security to Enable Safe AI Adoption

Proofpoint, Inc., a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, today announced significant enhancements to its Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and data access governance capabilities in Europe, including expanded AI-powered data discovery and classification across Europe's major business languages. Hosted from Proofpoint’s data centre located in Frankfurt, Germany, these investments help organisations adopt AI safely by discovering, classifying, and governing sensitive data more effectively while meeting evolving data residency, privacy, and regulatory requirements.

As European organisations accelerate AI adoption, they face growing challenges understanding where sensitive data resides, who can access it, and how it is being used across increasingly complex cloud environments. In fact, insights from Proofpoint’s AI and Human Risk Report show that 42% of organisations cite experiencing a suspicious or confirmed AI-related incident. To help address these challenges, Proofpoint is extending its AI-powered data discovery, classification, data access governance, and remediation capabilities across English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, enabling organisations to identify sensitive and business-critical information regardless of the language it is written in.

Proofpoint is also expanding its library of EU-specific data classifiers, including national personal identifiers, passport numbers, tax identification numbers, mobile phone numbers, and postal addresses, providing comprehensive coverage across all EU countries. With shared classifiers and policy frameworks across the Proofpoint platform, Proofpoint helps organisations turn DSPM insights into data loss prevention by automating DLP policy creation and consistently protecting sensitive data. Combined with local hosting and service delivery from Proofpoint's Frankfurt data centre, these capabilities help organisations address European data residency requirements while maintaining visibility, governance and control over sensitive information.

"European organisations should not have to choose between innovation, compliance, and data residency," said Kent Breaux, SVP, EMEA, Proofpoint. "As AI adoption accelerates, organisations need visibility into their sensitive data and confidence that it is governed appropriately. Our continued investment in Europe helps customers adopt AI securely, meet evolving regulatory requirements, and maintain control over their most sensitive information."

With these enhancements, Proofpoint enables organisations to better align with evolving regulations, including the EU AI Act, by mapping data risk findings to recommended governance and compliance controls, helping security and compliance teams audit and reduce risk associated with sensitive data and AI usage.

With DSPM now available from Proofpoint's Frankfurt data centre, European organisations can access Proofpoint's full Data Security Platform with data residency built in. The platform connects data discovery and classification with access governance, data loss prevention, data security for AI, and insider risk management across cloud, SaaS, endpoints, email, and on-premises environments — giving security teams a direct path from identifying sensitive data exposure to acting on it.

The enhanced DSPM capabilities for European customers are expected to be available from August 2026.