Is PlanetScale HIPAA Compliant? BAA, PHI Storage, and Security Requirements Explained

Whether PlanetScale is “HIPAA compliant” for your organization depends on contracts and configuration. This guide explains what to verify—Business Associate Agreements, PHI handling, certifications, deployment patterns, and your responsibilities—so you can determine if PlanetScale can lawfully process Protected Health Information in your environment.

Business Associate Agreements

Why a BAA matters

Under HIPAA, a cloud database vendor becomes a Business Associate when it creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI on your behalf. A signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is mandatory before any PHI touches the service. Without an executed BAA, you should not store, process, or back up PHI in the platform.

What to confirm in a PlanetScale BAA

• Scope of services covered: primary storage, read replicas, backups, logs, and support channels where PHI may appear.
• Security safeguards aligned with the HIPAA Security Rule, including encryption expectations and access controls.
• Use and disclosure limits, subcontractor flow-downs, breach notification timelines, and incident cooperation.
• Data lifecycle terms: retention, return, and verified deletion of PHI upon termination.
• Customer audit, assurance, and reporting mechanisms you can rely on during assessments.

Remember that a Data Processing Addendum is not a substitute for a BAA; a DPA addresses privacy laws like GDPR, while the BAA addresses HIPAA-specific obligations.

PHI Storage and Security

Encryption and key management

• Data at rest: Confirm AES Encryption (commonly AES‑256) for database files, snapshots, and backups.
• Data in transit: Require TLS 1.2+ to all endpoints and enforce modern cipher suites.
• Keys: Validate key generation, rotation cadence, storage in a hardened KMS, and role separation for key access.

Access control and segregation

• Apply least-privilege roles for administrators, service accounts, and CI/CD automation.
• Use SSO with MFA and just-in-time elevation for high-risk operations.
• Segment PHI by environment (prod vs. non-prod) and consider field-level or application-managed encryption for especially sensitive attributes.

Backups, replication, and recovery

• Ensure backup encryption, tested restore procedures, and documented Recovery Point/Time Objectives that meet clinical needs.
• Validate that cross-region replication respects your residency strategy and that replicas preserve encryption and access policies.

Compliance Certifications

Independent attestations help you evaluate a provider’s controls, but they do not equal HIPAA compliance. A current SOC 2 Type II report can demonstrate the design and operating effectiveness of security, availability, and confidentiality controls over time. Certifications like ISO/IEC 27001 may also indicate a mature Information Security Management System. You still need an executed BAA and a compliant configuration to handle PHI.

Deployment Options for HIPAA

Network isolation patterns

• Private connectivity: Where supported, use AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect to keep traffic on provider backbones instead of the public internet.
• Restrictive ingress: IP allowlists, mutual TLS, and VPC peering can further narrow exposure.

Resource isolation and configuration

• Consider dedicated or single-tenant resources for stronger isolation, if available for your plan.
• Select regions intentionally, align retention with policy, and restrict administrative access via break-glass workflows.
• If offered, evaluate BYOK/HYOK models for enhanced key control and separation of duties.

Customer Responsibilities

HIPAA follows a shared-responsibility model. The platform provides infrastructure controls; you remain accountable for how PHI is ingested, accessed, and protected in your applications.

• Design: Minimize PHI storage, tokenize where feasible, and avoid placing PHI in query text, metrics, or support tickets.
• Identity: Enforce SSO, MFA, least privilege, short-lived credentials, and periodic access reviews.
• App security: Validate inputs, parameterize queries, and prevent leakage to logs or error messages.
• Operations: Monitor, patch dependencies, test restores, and document incident response and breach notification steps.
• Legal: Execute the BAA, maintain a Data Processing Addendum for non-HIPAA privacy regimes, and manage subcontractor agreements.

Data Residency and Privacy

Choose regions that satisfy contractual and regulatory needs, and confirm how replicas, backups, and analytics copies move across borders. If you serve both U.S. and international users, combine a HIPAA BAA with a Data Processing Addendum to address GDPR or other privacy laws. Map data flows so PHI and personal data stay within intended jurisdictions, and verify that deletion propagates to backups within documented timelines.

Security Logging and Auditing

What to capture

• Control plane: admin logins, role changes, key operations, network policy changes, and configuration edits.
• Data plane: authentication events, connection attempts, query activity patterns, and access denials.
• Lifecycle: backup creation/restore, replication status, and data export/import operations.

Retention, integrity, and review

• Stream logs to your SIEM for correlation with application and identity events.
• Set retention to meet legal and investigative needs; apply tamper-evident storage and clock synchronization.
• Run periodic access recertifications and produce audit-ready evidence from platform logs and your SIEM.

In practice, determining if PlanetScale is HIPAA compliant for your use case means: secure the BAA, validate encryption and access controls, choose an appropriate deployment pattern (e.g., AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect where supported), confirm certifications like SOC 2 Type II, and implement rigorous logging and operational discipline. Do these well, and you can operate confidently with PHI.

FAQs.

Does PlanetScale offer BAAs for HIPAA compliance?

BAA availability depends on the provider’s policies and your plan. Request a Business Associate Agreement from PlanetScale and confirm that it explicitly covers storage, backups, logs, and support interactions. Do not place PHI in the service until a BAA is fully executed.

What security measures does PlanetScale use to protect PHI?

You should expect strong encryption (such as AES Encryption at rest and TLS in transit), robust access controls, and secure key management. Validate details in documentation and the BAA, including backup encryption, admin access restrictions, and any network isolation features.

Are there deployment options suitable for HIPAA workloads?

Yes—discuss private connectivity and isolation options with the vendor. Where supported, patterns like AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect, restrictive allowlists, dedicated resources, and region pinning help you meet HIPAA’s technical safeguards.

How does PlanetScale support audit logging for HIPAA?

Confirm the availability of administrative and query-level logs, retention controls, and log export to your SIEM. Ensure logs are tamper-evident, time-synchronized, and comprehensive enough to support investigations, access reviews, and compliance audits.