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Data sovereignty is here to stay, no matter the push back from Silicon Valley. A government would be stupid to hand over all their citizens data to the US via

Data sovereignty is here to stay, no matter the push back from Silicon Valley. A government would be stupid to hand over all their citizens data to the US via US technology companies. There should be two directions of attack on this issue. Legislation to try and force US companies to legally protect personal data of citizens from other countries. And to build competitors to Microsoft, Amazon etc. Obviously creating a viable competitor is hard, and has been badly neglected. Not least because any non-US competitor would have to fight the US Government itself which would attempt to protect the US tech companies dominant positions. I'll take the GDPR and other countries attempts at the legislative route as a start however.

jasmer 4y ago
This is mixing a few streams. "A government would be stupid to hand over all their citizens data to the US via US technology companies" They have been for decades in some cases, and where is the problem, specifically? It is possibly one of national security, less so one of companies selling data for advertising and other reasons because Slack and MSFT are reliably not doing that, and contracts with companies can make that clear. If the contracts are breached those companies can be wiped out - just the same as any other commercial issue. So yes, it's reasonable for companies to want to have some data hosted within their own countries, but it most cases it will not matter. For instance, kids classroom telemetry data in the US vs. Germany will make absolutely no difference. That data is as 'safe' in the US as in Germany so long as there is a contract in place to specify how that data can be used. MSFT has no very special leverage with customer data in the US as opposed to Germany, if they are contractually bound. GDPR is a lot about protecting users from willy nilly use of their data which is a different question that national security and other legal issues. Theoretically, there are some concerns about US spy apparatus, but I suggest that if the CIA wants to access data in what the US deems to be in a 'lawful manner' - that having the data hosted in AWS outside the US won't make a huge difference. That kind of protection would require yet another level of thinking.

jasmer 4y ago

This is mixing a few streams. "A government would be stupid to hand over all their citizens data to the US via US technology companies" They have been for decades in some cases, and where is the problem, specifically? It is possibly one of national security, less so one of companies selling data for advertising and other reasons because Slack and MSFT are reliably not doing that, and contracts with companies can make that clear. If the contracts are breached those companies can be wiped out - just the same as any other commercial issue. So yes, it's reasonable for companies to want to have some data hosted within their own countries, but it most cases it will not matter. For instance, kids classroom telemetry data in the US vs. Germany will make absolutely no difference. That data is as 'safe' in the US as in Germany so long as there is a contract in place to specify how that data can be used. MSFT has no very special leverage with customer data in the US as opposed to Germany, if they are contractually bound. GDPR is a lot about protecting users from willy nilly use of their data which is a different question that national security and other legal issues. Theoretically, there are some concerns about US spy apparatus, but I suggest that if the CIA wants to access data in what the US deems to be in a 'lawful manner' - that having the data hosted in AWS outside the US won't make a huge difference. That kind of protection would require yet another level of thinking.