#data-sovereignty

#data-sovereignty

Microsoft is again banging the data sovereignty drum in Europe, months after admitting in a French court it couldn't guarantee that data will not be transmitted to the US government when legally required to do so. Under the CLOUD Act, US authorities can compel access to information held by American cloud providers irrespective of where in the world that data is housed. Although Microsoft says it has published transparency reports and no European customers, private or public, were yet the subject of any requests, the threat of the law remains and this is making some nervous.

The UAE is undergoing a shift in its digital infrastructure landscape, with a wave of data centre and cloud investments reshaping the nation into a regional hub for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation. This momentum is not only redefining the UAE's technological capabilities but also reinforcing its strategic vision of becoming a global nexus for digital innovation and data sovereignty.

Italy-based service provider Herabit has opted for Cubbit S3 distributed cloud storage in a move aimed at meeting demands for improved data sovereignty from its customer base. The move will see the company use Cubbit's DS3 Composer across three datacentres in northern Italy to provide backup, long-term data archiving and the creation of data lakes for artificial intelligence (AI) systems for Italian customers.

The documents contained in the FoI dump include correspondence between the tech giant and policing bodies and two data protection impact assessments (DPIAs). The tech giant also refused to disclose its own risk assessments into the transfer of UK policing data to other jurisdictions, including China and others deemed "hostile" in the DPIA documents.

Dependence on American cloud services entails significant risks. Minister Paul of Social Affairs warns of the consequences of a sudden denial of access. "An abrupt denial would affect essential support processes such as email, collaboration via Teams, document exchange, and security monitoring." In such a scenario, the Social Insurance Bank would face disrupted services and an affected communication structure. This vulnerability highlights the profound integration of American technology with government processes.

As AI takes off, the whole cycle promises to repeat itself again, and while AI might seem relatively cheap now, it might not always be so. Foundational AI model-as-a-service companies charge for insights by the token, and they're doing it at a loss. The profits will have to come eventually, whether that's direct from your pocket, or from your data, you might be interested in other ways to get the benefits of AI without being beholden to a corporation.

Bring Your Own This, Bring Your Own That. Enterprises are being sold concepts that allow them to bring their own resources to a vendor's party, potentially cutting costs, addressing data sovereignty concerns, enhancing security, or a combination of all three. However, Tom Wilkie, CTO of observability outfit Grafana Labs, reckons that companies need to exercise some caution and understand exactly what they are getting into before turning up at a vendor's doorstep with their cloud in tow.

HashiCorp's Hold Your Own Key (HYOK) support for HCP Terraform allows customers to fully control the encryption keys for sensitive Terraform artifacts, enhancing security.

Dependence on American cloud giants has become risky in a world where geopolitical tensions can directly affect digital infrastructure, according to Bernd Wagner, CEO of Stackit.

Google Cloud is offering organizations the option to keep Gemini 2.5 Flash machine learning processing entirely within the UK to address data sovereignty concerns. This allows customers to select the UK region for data storage and processing, which is crucial for sectors like financial services that warrant local data compliance.

SUSE Sovereign Premium Support geo-pins support to a given region, ensuring it aligns with data sovereignty regulations important for European customers.

Amid ongoing economic uncertainty, a survey reveals that 84% of IT leaders are concerned geopolitical factors might jeopardize their data access and control, emphasizing data sovereignty as a priority.