Speech-to-Text APIs
Gladia vs Deepgram: how do their security/compliance options compare (SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA)?
7 min read
Most voice platforms don’t fail because of fancy features—they fail the moment a compliance team says “no.” If your STT backbone can’t meet SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or HIPAA requirements, you never ship. This FAQ walks through how Gladia and Deepgram compare on those security and compliance baselines, and what actually changes for your product and legal risk profile.
Quick Answer: Gladia and Deepgram both offer strong security postures with SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA coverage, but Gladia frames these as default expectations for AI audio infrastructure rather than paid add‑ons or “enterprise tiers,” with an explicit “we never use your audio to retrain our models” stance and a trust‑center‑first approach for evaluation‑driven teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do Gladia and Deepgram compare on core certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA)?
Short Answer: Both Gladia and Deepgram offer enterprise-grade compliance across SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA; Gladia explicitly positions these as table stakes for AI audio infrastructure rather than premium features.
Expanded Explanation:
From a checklist view, Gladia is GDPR compliant, HIPAA compliant, AICPA SOC Type 2, and ISO 27001 compliant. That matches what most legal and security teams expect when you’re piping customer conversations into a third-party STT engine—especially in healthcare, financial services, and regulated B2B SaaS.
Deepgram also markets SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA capabilities, so on paper the badge set is similar. The difference is more in posture than logos: Gladia treats security, privacy, and compliance as a non-negotiable foundation for “AI audio infrastructure for companies,” not as an upsell. In practice, that means you don’t find fine print that gates data controls, retention policies, or privacy guarantees behind higher-priced plans.
Key Takeaways:
- Certification coverage is comparable: SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA on both sides.
- Gladia emphasizes these as defaults (not add-ons), with a strong “no model training on your audio” stance and a dedicated trust center.
What’s the practical process to get security and compliance sign‑off with Gladia vs Deepgram?
Short Answer: With both vendors, you’ll go through standard security review and DPIA/BAA steps; Gladia leans into a trust-center-first flow and evaluation-driven documentation tailored for teams building on STT as critical infrastructure.
Expanded Explanation:
Security approval for STT isn’t just about badges; it’s about documentation, contractual terms, and operational controls. With Gladia, the process typically starts from the trust center and legal docs (Terms, General Terms of Use, Privacy Notice, Legal Notice), then moves into your organization’s security questionnaire, data protection impact assessment (DPIA) for GDPR, and a BAA if you’re in a HIPAA-covered environment.
Deepgram follows a similar pattern: you review their security docs, get SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports under NDA, and align on DPAs/BAAs. The delta is in how aligned each vendor is with “AI audio infrastructure” as a discipline. Gladia’s documentation is built for teams who care about evaluation, benchmarks, and data pathways, which tends to reduce friction when your security team asks detailed questions about processing, retention, and access patterns.
Steps:
- Gather documentation: Pull SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR statements, HIPAA/BAA language, Terms, and Privacy Notice from each vendor’s trust/security pages.
- Run internal review: Share with security, legal, and data protection officers to complete risk assessments, DPIAs, and vendor security questionnaires.
- Align contracts and controls: Execute DPAs/BAAs as needed, configure data retention and access controls, then integrate via REST/WebSocket knowing the compliance baseline is signed off.
Is there a meaningful difference between Gladia and Deepgram in privacy stance and data usage?
Short Answer: The core certifications are similar, but Gladia is explicit that your audio is never used to retrain its models, and frames data privacy as non‑negotiable rather than conditional.
Expanded Explanation:
Many STT vendors now list SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA, but differ in how they treat your audio and transcripts once ingested. Gladia’s positioning is clear: “Data privacy is non‑negotiable” and “We never use your audio to retrain our models.” That matters for regulated markets and for any platform that promises customers their calls, meetings, and voice notes won’t be fed back into generic training pipelines.
Deepgram provides controls and contractual options around training and privacy as well, but you’ll want to read their fine print to confirm default behaviors vs opt-out. With Gladia, the expectation is that models are not self-improving on your traffic by default, which reduces the compliance and reputational risk surface and simplifies conversations with customers who ask “Is my data used to train your vendor’s AI?”
Comparison Snapshot:
- Option A: Gladia: GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2/ISO 27001 compliant, explicit no‑training-on-your-audio stance, privacy as default posture.
- Option B: Deepgram: Similar certifications, training and data usage policies depend on specific terms and plan configuration.
- Best for: Teams that need auditable, conservative data usage assumptions—especially in EMEA, healthcare, or enterprise SaaS where “no training on customer data” is a feature, not a footnote.
What do I need to safely implement Gladia or Deepgram in a regulated product?
Short Answer: You need a clear data flow diagram, signed data protection agreements (and BAAs where applicable), and configuration that aligns retention, access, and training policies with your regulatory obligations.
Expanded Explanation:
Whether you pick Gladia or Deepgram, you’re wiring real conversations—often with PII and PHI—into a third-party API. Compliance hinges on how you manage that flow. With Gladia, you can treat the STT layer as AI audio infrastructure that already meets GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 requirements, then focus on your own storage, access controls, and deletion practices.
Because Gladia doesn’t use your audio to retrain models, you have one less data-processing purpose to account for in your DPIAs or HIPAA risk analyses. That simplifies internal documentation and external customer answers. With Deepgram, you can reach a similar place, but you’ll need to verify and configure training/data usage options explicitly.
What You Need:
- Documented architecture: Clear mapping of where audio is captured, where it’s sent (Gladia or Deepgram), how long it’s retained, and who can access transcripts.
- Contracts and configs: Signed DPAs/BAAs, plus vendor settings that enforce your required retention windows and training opt-out (where applicable).
Strategically, how should we think about Gladia vs Deepgram on security/compliance when choosing a long‑term STT partner?
Short Answer: Treat security and compliance as a hard gate, then choose the partner whose defaults (privacy stance, data controls, and evaluation transparency) lower your long‑term risk and integration overhead.
Expanded Explanation:
Once both vendors clear the core certifications—SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA—the real strategic question is: which STT backbone makes it easier to keep shipping features without getting re‑blocked by security or legal every quarter?
Gladia’s bet is that STT is infrastructure: it must be boringly solid on compliance, transparent on benchmarks, and conservative on data usage so you can focus on product. By anchoring on “we never use your audio to retrain our models” and publishing a trust center and open evaluation methodology, Gladia gives you a defensible story for your own customers and regulators. Deepgram can work in similar environments, but you’ll often have to do more granular term review to ensure defaults match your risk tolerance.
Why It Matters:
- Faster approvals, fewer surprises: A vendor whose default posture aligns with strict privacy expectations reduces re‑work every time you expand use cases or enter a new regulated region.
- Customer‑facing trust: When your own customers ask “What happens to our calls?”, having a simple, concrete answer—backed by certifications and explicit “no training on your audio” policies—directly impacts churn, expansion, and the viability of downstream voice products.
Quick Recap
Gladia and Deepgram both check the big boxes: SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA. The difference is how those controls are framed and enforced in practice. Gladia treats security and privacy as non‑negotiable infrastructure baselines, emphasizes that your audio is never used to retrain its models, and surfaces trust-center documentation to make security reviews predictable. If you’re building STT‑powered products where compliance, stability, and data privacy are as important as raw accuracy or latency, that default posture can significantly reduce risk and friction over the life of your platform.