US tech giant Microsoft presented new plans promising to improve the European cloud customers’ data protection.
Microsoft said information would be stored exclusively in domestic data centres subject to European law.
With this move, the software company stressed, customers would gain more control of data storage and only employees residing in Europe would be able to control remote access on the continent.
It announced the “Data Guardian” on June 16 for European operations and the “External Key Management” for customer-controlled encryption.
This issue has become increasingly important in Europe, where sovereignty, including technological sovereignty, has grown in importance.
“All remote access by Microsoft engineers to the systems that store and process your data in Europe is approved and monitored by European resident personnel in real time and will be logged in a tamper-evident ledger,” the Big Tech behemoth said in a press release.
The company also announced the option of using its office automation software directly from a customer’s data centre to allow full control over data traffic.
“This brings together comprehensive productivity, security and cloud solutions designed to enable European organisations to grow, compete and lead on their own terms and with more control than ever before across Sovereign Public Cloud, Sovereign Private Cloud and National Partner Clouds,” it said.
“Private Sovereign Cloud is designed for governments, critical industries and regulated sectors that need to meet the highest standards of data residency, operational autonomy and disconnected access.”
Microsoft highlighted the new sovereign private cloud would support collaboration with national partners’ clouds.
“In France, we have an agreement with Bleu, a joint venture between Orange and Capgemini, for Bleu to operate a ‘cloud de confiance‘ for the French public sector, critical infrastructure providers and essential services providers that is designed to meet SecNumCloud requirements,” the US company said.
“In Germany, we have an agreement with Delos Cloud, an SAP subsidiary, for Delos Cloud to operate a sovereign cloud for the German public sector that is designed to meet the German government’s Cloud Platform Requirements.”
Promising to act on European demands, Microsoft added: “In a time of geopolitical volatility, we are committed to providing digital stability. With each step we take in this journey, we invite open dialogues with our customers, policymakers and regulators as we continue to innovate.”
US companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google completely dominate the European cloud-computing market, owning up to 80 per cent of it.
That has led to calls for a European response. France in particular has been pushing to create more home-grown capacities, ensuring European and French sovereignty over data.
According to US law, the federal government can force private companies to grant access to all data stored on their servers, anywhere in the world.
