Does Canny Work in China? Data Residency, PIPL & an Offshore Feedback Board
Canny hosts your feedback boards and your users' names, emails and comments on AWS and MongoDB Atlas with no mainland-China region — and its own privacy policy transfers that data to the United States. A compliance-first look at the PIPL cross-border transfer and data-residency exposure, and the two doors.
Does Canny work in China?
Whether you can use Canny in mainland China is first a data-residency question, not a speed one. Canny is an offshore feedback platform — it hosts your boards and roadmap and the identities of everyone who posts to them — so where it keeps that data is what China's law reacts to.
By Canny's own security and privacy pages, it "uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host all of our applications and static resources" and "Atlas, a product of MongoDB, to host our data", and for anyone outside the United States it will "transfer the data to United States and process it there." The Customer Data it holds "may include ... names, and email addresses of your end user customers ... and visitors to your websites" — so the names, emails and feedback your China users post are held offshore: a cross-border transfer of personal information PIPL governs, needing notice, separate consent and a transfer mechanism, and for a CIIO or large-volume handler, in-country storage. The table below is Canny's own wording and the rules it triggers.
This is a risk picture, not a verdict — your duties turn on your data volumes and your role. Our China team can map your Canny exposure with you →
Compliance snapshot
- ! Served offshore from AWS with no mainland node — your board and embedded widget load across the border
- ! Holds your China users' names, emails and feedback, and transfers that data to the United States
- ! That transfer is personal information leaving China — PIPL applies (notice, separate consent, a transfer mechanism)
- ✕ No mainland-China region or data-residency option — hosted on AWS and MongoDB Atlas offshore
- ✓ A compliant, ICP-filed in-country delivery and storage path exists — no rebuild, no migration
What Canny's own documentation says about China
| Fact | Primary source |
|---|---|
| In Canny's own words: Canny "uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host all of our applications and static resources" and "uses Atlas, a product of MongoDB, to host our data." Both are offshore platforms; Canny publishes no region inside mainland China, so your boards, your roadmap and the embedded widget all run outside it. | Canny — Security, retrieved 2026-10-07 |
| Canny's privacy policy is explicit about where the data goes: if you are "located outside United States ... we transfer the data to United States and process it there," and "Personal data is transferred to servers maintained by Amazon Web Services (AWS)." For your Chinese users, that is personal information leaving the mainland. | Canny — Privacy Policy, Transfer Of Data, retrieved 2026-10-07 |
| The data Canny holds is personal: its Customer Data "may include ... personal information such as names, and email addresses of your end user customers ... and visitors to your websites, apps and other properties," alongside the feedback, votes and comments those users post. PIPL governs that cross-border transfer: the handler — you, Canny's customer, not Canny — must give notice, obtain separate consent, and satisfy one transfer mechanism (a CAC security assessment, the CAC standard contract, or certification). | Canny — Privacy Policy (Customer Data); PIPL Chapter III, Articles 38–43 |
| The exposure scales with volume and role, not merely with using the tool: under the CAC's March 2024 cross-border rules, a non-CIIO transferring fewer than 100,000 individuals' non-sensitive personal information in a calendar year is exempt from the security assessment, standard contract and certification. | CAC — Regulations on Promoting and Regulating Cross-border Data Flows, March 2024 |
| For a CIIO or large-volume handler, personal information collected in China must be stored inside the mainland (CSL Article 39 (formerly Article 37); PIPL Article 40). Canny publishes no mainland-China region, so the only way to keep your China users' feedback and contact details on Chinese soil is to run that collection and storage on infrastructure inside the mainland — and standing that up lawfully is where an ICP filing enters the picture. | PIPL Article 40; CSL Article 39 (formerly Article 37); Canny — Security (no mainland region), retrieved 2026-10-07 |
Sources verified by the 21YunBox compliance team on 2026-10-07.
For a mainland-China audience, the deciding question about Canny is not how quickly its feedback widget paints — it is where your users’ feedback and identities are allowed to live. Canny answers that in its own security and privacy pages: its applications and data run on Amazon Web Services and MongoDB Atlas, and anything submitted from outside the United States is transferred to the US and processed there. A China-facing Canny board is therefore reachable but entirely offshore — it has no ICP-filing path of its own, no mainland data residency, and every name, email and comment your Chinese users post becomes a cross-border transfer China’s law governs. The delivery is the easy half; the licensing and the data residency are the exposure.
Canny in China at a glance
| What decides it | In Canny's own terms |
|---|---|
| Where it runs | Canny “uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host all of our applications and static resources” and “Atlas, a product of MongoDB, to host our data.” Both are offshore; no region is inside mainland China. |
| Where your data goes | If you are outside the United States, Canny “transfer[s] the data to United States and process[es] it there,” and “Personal data is transferred to servers maintained by Amazon Web Services (AWS).” |
| What it holds about your users | Customer Data “may include … names, and email addresses of your end user customers … and visitors to your websites,” plus the feedback, votes and comments they post. For China users, that is personal information leaving the country. |
| Serving the public board | A feedback board shown to mainland visitors from offshore has no ICP-filing path of its own; reaching China is not the same as being cleared to operate there. |
| Is it reachable? | The board and embedded widget are delivered from offshore AWS with no mainland node, so any request — including the identify call that carries a user's name and email — crosses the border. Reachability is a delivery matter; the compliance question is where that data lands. |
No mainland region, so your board and widget live offshore
Canny does not run inside mainland China. On its own security page it states it “uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host all of our applications and static resources” and “Atlas, a product of MongoDB, to host our data” — two offshore platforms, with no mainland-China region offered. Your feedback board, your public roadmap and the JavaScript widget you embed on your site are all served from there.
That geography settles the licensing question before performance ever enters it. A public-facing feedback board shown to mainland visitors from inside China turns on an ICP filing under State Council Order No. 292 and MIIT Order No. 33, and that filing has to attach to a hosting resource physically located in the mainland. Canny has none, so there is simply nothing on Canny to file against. That is where “we already collect feedback on Canny” runs out: reaching China is not the same as being cleared to operate there, and tuning the widget does not create the mainland footing a filing needs.
Your users’ feedback and identities cross the border
The sharper exposure is the data. Canny exists to capture what your users say and who they are: its privacy policy states that its Customer Data “may include … personal information such as names, and email addresses of your end user customers … and visitors to your websites,” and the feedback, votes and comments they post are tied to those identities. When those users are in China and the data lands on AWS in the United States, that is a cross-border transfer of personal information under China’s Personal Information Protection Law.
PIPL puts the duty on the handler — you, Canny’s customer, not Canny. Before that data leaves the country you must give notice, obtain separate consent, and clear one transfer mechanism: a CAC security assessment, the CAC standard contract, or certification. Under the CAC’s March 2024 cross-border rules a non-CIIO moving fewer than 100,000 individuals’ non-sensitive personal information in a calendar year is exempt from all three — so the obligation scales with your volume and your role, not merely with switching Canny on. And if you are a critical information infrastructure operator or a large-volume handler, personal information collected in China must be stored in the mainland (Cybersecurity Law Article 39 (formerly Article 37); PIPL Article 40) — a residency duty an offshore AWS region cannot meet.
Reachable is not the same as compliant
Whether Canny’s board and widget are reachable from a given network in China, they are delivered from offshore AWS, and the identify call that passes a user’s name and email runs back to those same offshore hosts. So the question a China-facing Canny board raises is not really whether it paints; it is that reaching it hands you neither an ICP filing nor in-country data residency, and routes your users’ personal information across the border. Those are compliance facts about where the data goes, and no amount of network tuning changes them.
This is a risk map, not a verdict: whether you need an ICP-filed in-country presence, in-country storage, or both depends on what your board collects, how much personal data you hold and who your users are — worth settling with counsel before you build.
Where 21YunBox fits — a compliant overlay, not a migration
You keep running on Canny. We add the pieces an offshore feedback platform cannot: compliant, ICP-filed delivery from inside the mainland placed in front of the board your users reach, and, where the law requires it, in-country storage for the personal data they submit — no rebuild, no second codebase, and no move off Canny. Our China team maps your PIPL cross-border and data-residency obligations against your entity and data volumes, then stands up the in-country delivery and storage a lawful China presence needs, while Canny stays exactly where it already runs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Canny store Chinese users' feedback and contact details in China?
No. By Canny's own security and privacy documentation, its applications run on Amazon Web Services and its data on MongoDB Atlas, and information provided from outside the United States is transferred to the US and processed there. There is no mainland-China region, so the names, emails and feedback your China users post are held offshore.
Is it against the law to use Canny in China?
Not inherently. The issue is the cross-border transfer of personal information — the names, emails and feedback your users submit — which PIPL permits if you give notice, obtain separate consent and meet one of its transfer mechanisms. Whether you also face a data-localization duty depends on your role (for example, whether you are a CIIO) and the volume of personal information you handle. Treat it as a risk to assess with counsel, not a blanket prohibition.
Can 21YunBox help make our Canny setup compliant in China?
Yes. Our China team can assess the cross-border and data-residency exposure for your data volumes and role, and stand up compliant, ICP-filed in-country delivery — and, where the law requires your China users' data to stay on the mainland, in-country storage. Get in touch to work through your specific case.
