European sovereignty · free · 2 minutes
Answer 6 questions about the PDF, e-signature and AI tools your teams use. You get a European sovereignty score out of 100, your priority risks and a report ready to share.
Question 1 of 6
Editing text, merging, reordering pages or hiding information: tick every tool in use, even occasionally.
Question 2 of 6
Online converters are often the first place a contract leaves the company.
Question 3 of 6
Compressing attachments or running text recognition (OCR) on scanned documents.
Question 4 of 6
E-signature, initials or certificates: these tools often keep your documents for years.
Question 5 of 6
Summarising a report, querying a contract, extracting clauses: even occasional use counts.
Question 6 of 6
The more sensitive your files, the more exposure weighs on your score.
Select at least one PDF tool Select at least one tool across steps 1–5, then click “Calculate my score”.
Diagnostic results
At a glance
Sovereign action plan
Compare your current setup with a sovereign French alternative free from US CLOUD Act exposure.
| Criterion | Your current setup | With Ancrale |
|---|
Detailed analysis
Rated 0 to 100 on each of the 4 audited criteria — 100 means fully sovereign.
Priority findings
Ranked by selected tools and the sensitivity of your document types.
Sources & audit trail
Every tool rated on the 5 checkpoints. Hover a badge for details.
| Tool | CLOUD Act | Jurisdiction | Servers | Retention | AI | Status |
|---|
Exports
Ready-to-send deliverables for your leadership, your DPO or your network.
LinkedIn sharing only sends this page’s address: your score and answers stay in your browser. The post text is copied so you can paste it, along with the visual if you like.
Method
Editing, conversion, compression, e-signature and AI: select the online services your PDFs go through.
Contracts, HR, customer files, health or finance: the regulatory sensitivity of your files weights the result.
CLOUD Act exposure, jurisdiction, server location, retention and AI: every criterion is rated and sourced.
Comparison
The 19 most used PDF, e-signature and AI tools, assessed on the same checkpoints. Public sources verified on 14 November 2026.
Transparency: WherePDFgo is published by Ancrale, the vendor of one of the compared solutions. Every tool, Ancrale included, is rated with the same grid from the cited public sources. Vendors can request a correction of their sheet: contact@ancrale.fr.
| Tool | Use | CLOUD Act | Servers | Retention | AI | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ancrale | Editing, Conversion, Compression, Signature, AI analysis | No | France | 16 min | No | 100 /100 |
 Yousign (Youtrust) | Signature | No | France | Legal evidence | No | 100 /100 |
 Universign (Signaturit Group) | Signature | Exposed | Unproven | Legal evidence | No | 72 /100 |
 iLovePDF | Conversion, Compression, Editing | No | Unproven | 2 h | No | 64 /100 |
 PDF24 Tools (online) | Conversion, Compression, Editing | No | Unproven | 1 h | No | 64 /100 |
 Sejda PDF Web | Editing, Compression, Conversion | Exposed | Non-EU | 2 h | No | 52 /100 |
 Adobe Acrobat Sign | Signature | Exposed | Non-EU | Legal evidence | No | 51 /100 |
 DocuSign | Signature | Exposed | Non-EU | Legal evidence | No | 51 /100 |
 Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) | Signature | Exposed | Non-EU | Legal evidence | No | 51 /100 |
 Le Chat — Mistral AI | AI analysis | Exposed | EU | Persistent | Possible | 43 /100 |
 Smallpdf | Conversion, Compression, Editing | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | No | 39 /100 |
 Adobe Acrobat Online | Editing, Conversion, Compression | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | No | 25 /100 |
 Foxit PDF Editor Cloud | Editing, Conversion | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | No | 25 /100 |
 Microsoft Copilot | AI analysis | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | No | 25 /100 |
 Canva (PDF import & editing) | Editing | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | Possible | 20 /100 |
 ChatGPT (PDF upload) | AI analysis | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | Possible | 13 /100 |
 Claude (PDF upload) | AI analysis | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | Possible | 13 /100 |
 Google Gemini (PDF upload) | AI analysis | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | Possible | 13 /100 |
 Perplexity (PDF upload) | AI analysis | Exposed | Non-EU | Persistent | Possible | 13 /100 |
Understand
Enacted in March 2018, the CLOUD Act lets US authorities compel a provider subject to US law to hand over data it controls, wherever it is stored. A server in Frankfurt or Dublin therefore does not protect files entrusted to a US company.
Articles 44 to 50 of the GDPR restrict transfers of personal data outside the EU. Since the Schrems II ruling of the EU Court of Justice (16 July 2020), such transfers must be assessed case by case; the Data Privacy Framework adopted in July 2023 was upheld at first instance by the EU General Court (September 2025), but its durability is still debated.
Converting, compressing or summarising a contract with an online service means handing a copy to a third party. Retention, backups and reuse for AI training vary widely from one tool to another.
FAQ
European sovereignty. The score measures whether your documents stay under EU law and out of reach of extraterritorial laws, first of all the US CLOUD Act. It is designed for organisations subject to European Union law, with a slight preference for hosting in France. It does not measure any other country’s sovereignty: for a US organisation, for instance, it is meaningless.
The CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) is a US federal law enacted in March 2018. It allows US authorities to compel a company subject to US law to disclose data it holds or controls, including when that data is hosted outside the United States.
Not necessarily. What matters is the nationality of the vendor and its parent company: a US service that stores your PDFs in Europe remains subject to the CLOUD Act. Only a vendor and a host governed exclusively by European law remove that risk.
Of the 19 tools reviewed, those hosting your files in France are: Ancrale, Yousign (Youtrust). Each tool sheet details the host and retention period.
Yes, for a period that depends on the plan. On consumer accounts, files and conversations are kept and may be used to train models by default unless you opt out. Business plans generally exclude training but remain subject to US law.
Each tool is assessed on CLOUD Act exposure, vendor jurisdiction, server location and file retention (including AI training). The score blends the most exposed tool, the average of your tools and how many you use, then is weighted by the sensitivity of your documents (×1.00 to ×1.45). Only written vendor commitments count; a US intermediary such as Cloudflare on the file path counts as CLOUD Act exposure, and any retention beyond 30 min after processing caps the score at 80/100 (except the e-signature evidence archive).
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. No answer, score or file is transmitted or stored, and the site uses no cookies and no tracking.
Each sheet is based on the vendor’s public policies and shows its verification date. Last update: 14 November 2026.