DataGuard Reviews 

AVOID THIS COMPANY - MUCH BETTER INDEPENDENTS AVAILABLE:

We engaged Dataguard Agency for support with ISO 27001, but our experience has been extremely disappointing.

At the time we signed up, ISO 27001 was transitioning from the 2013 standard to the 2022 standard. We were not made properly aware of the practical implications of this transition. Dataguard allowed our company to work towards the 2013 standard, despite the fact that this would then require further support and additional work to transition to the 2022 standard afterwards.

In our view, this created unnecessary duplication of workload and avoidable disruption for our team. We would have expected much clearer guidance from the outset, particularly from an agency advising on compliance standards. Had the transition been properly explained, we could have made a more informed decision and planned the certification work more efficiently.

We also found the sales process concerning. Around the time of signing up, I received repeated phone calls from the sales team, who appeared very keen to secure a contract for 1 September, which we were told was linked to the German financial year. Naively, we signed up. However, after the contract was secured, there was then no meaningful contact until 15 September.

After what had already been a poor experience, I attempted to raise these concerns with a senior colleague at Dataguard. Unfortunately, the meeting only added to our frustration. I found the individual’s approach to be rude, abrupt, and dismissive throughout. Rather than acknowledging the concerns or trying to understand the impact on our company, the response felt defensive and lacking in empathy.

One of their colleagues, Finn Collins, also appeared taken aback during the meeting by the tone and attitude displayed. For us, this reinforced the wider issue: placing a company on the 2013 standard and then later requiring a transition to the 2022 standard, when this could have been explained more transparently from the outset, reflects a disappointing approach to customer care.

A further issue has arisen around payment. Despite one of Dataguard’s employees confirming that no money was owed to the company, Dataguard has continued to pursue what appears to be a disputed “half month” payment. This is now around 18 months later, and debt collection agencies from Germany have become involved. We remain unsure how this will end, but the situation has caused unnecessary stress and frustration.

Overall, our experience has left us feeling that the process was not managed transparently, proactively, or fairly. We would have expected clearer advice, better communication, and a much more reasonable approach to resolving disputed charges and customer concerns.

Awful experience, no customer service, poor stability on their own platform - avoid at all costs

As a customer, we found DataGuard provided very little practical value relative to the cost. The service felt generic and non-responsive without delivering meaningful support or insight. Communication was often slow and issues required repeated follow-up.

Overall, we did not feel the platform or service justified the investment and would not recommend DataGuard based on our experience.

We needed urgent project start for our ISMS and ISO certification. Consultant has been assigned within 1 week. We got the certification in first attempt.

Can't get hold of anyone. Been trying to reach them for months.

Using both parts of the solution, compliance and security. The customer success team has been very helpful.

This is as much a warning about anyone considering the the company as it is a review of our experience with Dataguard.

We started with Dataguard back in 2022 in order to help us achieve our ISO27001 certification. Initially it looked like a good match but what we didnt realise however that they don't explain when starting out with them is that after the minimum term which is 24 months, they impose a 6 months termination clause meaning you are always going to be close to £9000 owed to them even when you have finished with their services.

When we started with them we were given a consultant who was pretty much non-existent. 12 months went by with only 3 online meetings and virtually no other contact other than an occaisional email. Eventually we were giving a new consultant who in fairness to Data Guard was very good although by this stage we had already wasted £18,000 on essentially nothing. We really should have given notice at the 18 month mark but were were unaware of the 6 month termination and by this stage we wanted to continue with our certification.

We started to use their online portal for documents etc but it was nothing more than a buggy glorified cloud storage and we felt that we were nothing more than beta testers for the system. In the end we dumped their portal as using AI was much more beneficial.

I can only suggest to anyone that is considering Dataguard to carefully think over the decision. The company is not very open with its contractual agreement and yest I know we should have read it a little more closely but you would hope a company of their size would be a little more open and transparent.

Overall its a big no from me. We may well extend our ISO27001 scope shortly but we will be looking elsewhere if we need help and guidance.

Total waste of money and wont let you out of contract. avoid.

We had a very positive experience with our consultant, who was very competent and well informed in the topics data privacy and information security. We can only recommend the services of DataGuard.

We have been working with Dataguard for two years, but we didn't feel it was worth the money. They weren't proactive in reaching out, and it felt that we were not getting much for the monthly fee. Except for the first set-up period of one month, there was no communication after that. We were expecting that they would help us improve our data protection processes, but that didn't happen.

I have been working with DataGuard for a couple of years now. The platform itself can be improved to be more user-friendly. A lot of unnecessary re-directions and sometimes missing features.
Having said that DataGuard have made good improvements recently. The push for fixed plans and pricing has been a positive change. New consultants have been hired which are doing a great job.
I want to give a big kudos to our consultant Emre Ceyhan! He has been incredibly helpful and treats our needs as a priority. I know that I can rely on him and his expert advice. Thank you Emre!

We have had a long-standing customer relationship since 2018 and are delighted to be working with DataGuard. The contact persons are always available and do a great job in supporting and helping us in all matters. In particular, I would like to highlight the professionalism of our contact person, Mr Rowe, who is always happy to assist us and answers all our questions with a friendly attitude.

We started working with DataGuard 3 years ago with a comprehensive audit and throughout the years of support, we've had an excellent experience!

Even though the audit questions weren't perfectly fitting for our setup and processes back then, our consultants made sure to cover everything flexibly. Since then DataGuard has improved and extended it's services, platform and functions in an impressive way.
Our current consultant, Onur Turhan, is incredibly professional and knowledgeable. He guides us with practical and pragmatic advice and helps us navigate data privacy and compliance challenges with ease.

I highly recommend DataGuard, especially if you're lucky enough to work with Onur—his attention to detail, level of organization and responsiveness are top-notch!

Deleted real reviews, and those positive are by their pushed employees.

Onur from DataGuard has truly exceeded our expectations. His deep understanding of data protection and proactive support have really impressed us. We feel we're in the best hands and greatly appreciate his quick, reliable assistance. Top-notch data protection – thank you, Onur!

Dataguard has been extremely helpful to go over ISO 27001:2022 and GDPR requirements. Both security and privacy requirements have been covered. They fulfilled the role of DPO as well. I can recommend their services. Ben, Yazid and Jonathan were really helpful across the whole process.

Challenges with Communication and Delivery, along with Deceptive Contract Considerations.

Our experience with communication and delivery has been less than satisfactory. We encountered difficulties in receiving timely responses and prompt delivery of services. It is important to note that our engagement with this company involved committing to one-year contracts, which unfortunately limited our ability to terminate the agreement once we became aware of their inadequate performance.

Regrettably, we incurred significant expenses amounting to thousands of pounds, primarily attributed to the company's provision of basic spreadsheet templates for our completion. Moreover, their responsiveness was inconsistent, with minimal communication until payment was requested.

Throughout our professional engagements, we have encountered various challenges, but it is rare to encounter a company that operates in such an unprofessional manner. These experiences have led us to question the integrity and reliability of the services provided by this particular organization.

They were so committed to support our company to be ready for the assesment , which has been passed from the first time.

This support team is so collaborativ

We are a small not-for-profits & have been using DataGuard as our external DPO for just under a year and have just renewed again for the next 12 months. I would have no hesitation in recommending their services to small companies who do not have dedicated resources for their data privacy needs. Caroline has been especially helpful and extremely knowledgeable and has helped to organise our GDPR requirements into manageable segments that we have worked on together.

We have used DataGuard to set up and help with our Privacy Policy. Both our DPO and Customer Success Manager have been knowledgeable, approachable and available helping in making the process as smooth as possible.
We have been able to put all our employees through the Academy training which is digestible and relevant, the admin area makes the process easy to track and confirm the training completed.
They are very customer driven and continue to make great improvements to an already great platform!
Thanks DataGuard!