EU legislators get highest data governance
Belgian telco Proximus is working with Luxembourg state-owned data centre LuxConnect to give the local and international governing organisations and businesses a cloud service that respects local data governance regulations, AKA a Sovereign Cloud. The pact is a way of ring fencing the data so that it cannot escape by accident or design into foreign territory and be pored over by teams of marketeers and privacy ransackers. The power of Proximus’ experienced teams created a uniquely secure offering in this region, according to Paul Konsbruck, CEO of LuxConnect, “This agreement combines the strengths of both partners.”
The partners are pioneering the delivery of Google Distributed Cloud Hosted, described as a disconnected sovereign cloud, which respects the sovereignty of data used by governments, regulated enterprises and international organisations in Europe. Proximus and Google Cloud, have announced a five-year agreement to deliver sovereign cloud services in Belgium and Luxembourg. Sensitive, vital work will come under the latest ‘digital sovereignty controls’ imposed by Google.
Google Distributed Cloud Hosted does not require connectivity to Google Cloud to manage infrastructure, services, application programming interfaces or tools. Google Cloud’s sovereignty is, apparently, designed for customer control and transparency you can see your sensitive data moving to the cloud.
“Data sovereignty is vital to European and international organisations as they digitise their operations and deploy the latest cloud innovations,” said Adair Fox-Martin, president of Google Cloud ‘go to market’ and the head of Google Ireland, “these sovereign cloud systems will help ensure that public and private-sector organisations can advance their digital transformation agendas using the latest technologies without compromising on the security and sovereignty of their data and systems.”
Sovereign cloud has been on Luxembourg’s digital agenda for many years, according to Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. “This will fill an important gap in our strategy to become a trusted digital hub from which we serve the most demanding public and private clients.”
Guillaume Boutin, CEO of the Proximus Group, said it is a major milestone for Proximus to guarantee full operational sovereignty for its clients – on EU’s terms. “Proximus will use its vast cloud services experience in order to bring these disconnected cloud services to the Belgian and Luxembourg markets,” said Boutin.