By Chris Harris, EMEA Technical Director at Thales UK
At a time when increasing regulation is leading to a shift towards the containment and localization of data, the European Data Protection Day is an important reminder for companies to take the necessary measures to protect data transferred between sovereign countries. Control over encryption and access to sensitive company data ensures that the information does not fall into the hands of a foreign institution without permission – which can be just as expensive as a bad reputation.
There are now more than 1,800 data protection compliance laws around the world that companies must comply with. Data sovereignty is no longer just about localization, but about the fact that nation states have the opportunity to store their data in their own country and control access to it. Looking ahead, companies need to rethink their cloud strategy, governance and risk management. It is likely that more and more tech giants will start building local data centers to bypass geographical obstacles to their businesses. This, in turn, will lead to global cloud providers increasingly investing in the cloud infrastructure of nation states.
