Solutions / Why We Only Install UniFi
Why AION only installs UniFi, and nothing else.
The policy, the reason behind it, and the design case, in plain terms.
The legal backdrop
Under GDPR, personal data moves freely within the EU and EEA. Moving it outside that zone is a different matter: GDPR Chapter V requires specific legal safeguards before that's allowed, an adequacy decision covering the destination country, or contractual clauses that bind the receiving party to EU-level protections. Camera footage and access logs are personal data under that rule, which makes "where does this footage actually go" a legal question for any building operator, not just a technical curiosity.
The concrete answer
UniFi hardware is built to store data locally by default. Footage from cameras and logs from access controllers stay on the on-site NVR or gateway, the physical box inside the building, unless someone with the login deliberately turns on cloud backup, whether that's Google Drive, Dropbox, or Ubiquiti's own cloud service. For a private home, in practice, that means the recordings never leave the house at all. That's a direct answer to a data-sovereignty question, not a policy citation to point at.
No vendor is immune
Ubiquiti had a breach of its own in 2021, but it involved stolen cloud credentials, not a compromise of on-site hardware. It's why AION keeps footage on local storage by default: cloud infrastructure becomes a bigger target the more data flows through it.
The wider pattern
AION's preference for UniFi isn't the only place this concern shows up in Europe. The European Parliament voted to remove Hikvision cameras from its own Brussels buildings in 2021 over security and human-rights concerns. Lithuania's National Cyber Security Centre named Dahua and Hikvision specifically in a 2020 technical report, after finding dozens of vulnerabilities and confirming some cameras sent data to servers in Russia. The government followed up in 2022 with a law barring roughly 400 state institutions from installing equipment from "unreliable manufacturers," a category built around Chinese, Russian, and Belarusian suppliers. The same two manufacturers were also barred from US federal procurement in 2019 under NDAA Section 889, effective the following year, over documented data-exfiltration and backdoor findings in their hardware and firmware. AION's position isn't just a European reaction, in other words. It matches conclusions reached separately on both sides of the Atlantic.
AION's policy
AION does not install cameras, access controllers, or networking equipment from manufacturers named in those restrictions. This applies to every project, condominium, home, hospital, or office, regardless of budget. If a client already has this hardware installed, AION's first recommendation is to replace it, not add to it.
The design case
UniFi is also, separately, the reason AION doesn't miss the alternative. One ecosystem, one app, and devices designed with enough restraint that they don't need to be hidden behind a ceiling tile. As the owner puts it, UniFi is what Apple is to phones or Tesla is to cars in this category: a company that treats hardware design as part of the product instead of an afterthought to the electronics inside it. AION builds every system on that stack because it's the rare case where the safest choice and the best-looking one are the same one.
See the policy in practice.
Book a free site survey and see the actual UniFi hardware installed in a real building.