Signed IMA available on request
Satisfies HIPAA's business-associate requirement before you sign anything else — no procurement surprises later.
HEALTHCARE & PHI
HIPAA-Aligned, Canadian Cloud Backup with a Signed IMA
An audit-clearable backup vendor for Canadian clinics, hospitals, and multi-site practices. eazyBackup signs a IMA on request, holds 100% of PHI inside Canadian jurisdiction, and offers Object Lock immutability via Canadian e3 Object Storage when a workload requires it — so a clinical incident does not become a regulatory one.
IMA available
PHIPA / PIPEDA aligned
100% Canadian residency
Optional Object Lock immutability
AES-256 customer-keyed
CGP screened personnel
The challenge
In Healthcare, a Backup Failure Is Also a Compliance Event
When a clinic loses access to patient records — to ransomware, hardware failure, or simple human error — two problems start at the same time. The first is operational: scheduling, charting, imaging, and prescriptions all depend on systems that are suddenly offline, and patients are still arriving. The second is regulatory, and it comes with a deadline. HIPAA presumes a breach the moment ransomware encrypts ePHI, unless the organization can demonstrate a low probability of compromise. PHIPA and most provincial privacy laws expect notification at the first reasonable opportunity. Answering the regulator means producing evidence: which systems were affected, what the backups contained, and proof the backups themselves were never touched. A backup vendor that can't produce that evidence — or that never signed a IMA in the first place — makes a hard week considerably harder.
- !Ransomware that reaches the EHR stops clinical work — scheduling, charting, and medication reconciliation go down with it.
- !HIPAA treats a ransomware encryption event as a presumed breach unless the covered entity can demonstrate a low probability of compromise through a four-factor risk assessment.
- !PHIPA and provincial privacy law require notice at the first reasonable opportunity — and an IPC referral when the breach meets statutory thresholds.
- !A missing IMA usually surfaces during an OCR or privacy commissioner review — long after the contract was signed.
- !Cross-border residency problems appear when a vendor's 'Canadian region' turns out to be operated from the United States.
Why generic backup falls short
Consumer Backup Tools Were Not Built for PHI
Consumer-grade backup tools were built to protect laptops, and it shows in the four places that matter most to a covered entity. Most won't sign a IMA. Most run on US-headquartered infrastructure, which puts cross-border disclosure on the table under PHIPA and provincial privacy law. They protect endpoints only, leaving the EHR server, imaging archive, and clinical databases uncovered. And few offer immutable storage, so the ransomware that encrypts production can usually reach the backups too. Any one of these gaps can stall procurement — and the residency question alone rules out most US-operated vendors before a compliance review even begins.
- —No IMA on offer — an automatic disqualifier for any HIPAA-covered entity or business associate.
- —US-headquartered operators trigger cross-border review under PHIPA and provincial privacy law; a 'Canadian region' is not a Canadian operator.
- —Endpoint-only coverage cannot back up EHR servers, RIS/PACS imaging archives, SQL databases, or virtual machines.
- —No immutable storage option — the same ransomware event that hits production can encrypt or delete the backups, leaving no clean copy to anchor recovery.
How eazyBackup solves it
How eazyBackup Protects PHI
eazyBackup is a Canadian-owned company based in Ottawa, operating since 2017. One platform covers the systems a clinic actually runs: clinician laptops, EHR servers, imaging archives, SQL databases, and virtual machines, plus Microsoft 365 Backup for the Exchange, Teams, and SharePoint data where referrals, consent records, and clinical communications live. Everything is encrypted with AES-256 using keys only you control, and a signed IMA is available before you commit to anything. For workloads that require immutable copies, backups can be written to Canadian e3 Object Storage with Object Lock enabled — recovery points that no one, including us, can alter or delete.
100% Canadian data residency, no cross-border replication
Satisfies PHIPA and provincial privacy requirements without a legal review of US disclosure law.
AES-256 encryption with customer-controlled keys
You hold the keys. PHI is unreadable to eazyBackup staff — by design, not policy.
Optional Object Lock immutability via e3 Object Storage
Recovery points in a Canadian Object Lock bucket cannot be encrypted, altered, or deleted — by ransomware, an insider, or eazyBackup itself.
Coverage for endpoints, file servers, EHR databases, VMs, and Microsoft 365
One vendor for the whole clinical stack — not just laptops.
Screened personnel under the Controlled Goods Program
Documented background-check and access-control evidence, ready for audits.
24/7 restore access with Canadian support
Recover during clinical hours with someone on the phone — not an offshore ticket queue.
IMA available
PHIPA / PIPEDA aligned
100% Canadian residency
Optional Object Lock immutability
AES-256 customer-keyed
CGP screened personnel
A real-world scenario
A Five-Physician Family Practice Recovers Over a Weekend — with the Paper Trail to Prove It
A five-physician family practice is hit by ransomware late on a Thursday. The EMR database, the scheduling system, and the digital imaging files on the office server are all encrypted — and so is the backup drive plugged into that same server. But the practice's MSP had set up Cloud Backup writing to a Canadian e3 Object Storage bucket with Object Lock enabled, and those copies are untouched. On Friday the MSP rebuilds the server and restores the EMR, scheduling system, and imaging files from Wednesday night's immutable recovery point. Over the weekend, the office manager — who is also the practice's privacy officer — works through the breach assessment with the MSP, using detailed logs with timestamped restores, retention records, and proof the recovery points were never reachable by the attacker.
Outcome
The clinic opens Monday morning on schedule, with one day of charting to re-enter instead of a lost patient database. Because the backups were immutable and held in Canada, the privacy officer can show exactly what was restored, from when, and that no recovery point was altered — the documentation a privacy commissioner, a HIPAA four-factor assessment, or a cyber-insurance adjuster will ask for. The same pattern holds for the practices MSPs most often bring to us: dental offices, specialty clinics, and pharmacy groups running 8 to 15 locations on a shared EMR.
Ready to talk?
Speak with our Canadian team about how Healthcare & PHI Protection fits your environment.
Get in Touch
Talk to a real Canadian support team
Whether you're exploring backup options, need help with a migration, or have questions about our CGP-certified infrastructure, we're here to help. Share your requirements and we'll get back to you with a personalized response.
- CGP Registered & Audited — screened personnel only
- Response within 1 business day — Ottawa-based team
- 1-888-969-2016 — Mon–Fri 9am–5pm ET
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