What is a sovereign cloud and where does the need come from? Johan David Mitchell, a lawyer at the Queen Mary University in London, examined these questions on behalf of Broadcom as part of the Cloud Legal Project.
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According to Michels, sovereign cloud can mean different things, about which you depend on. From the user perspective, it is about control over the used cloud resources and data access. It is feared that foreign governments will use data based on the US Cloud Act, for example, as well as regulation of national and European Union such as GDPR requirements. There are concerns in sensitive areas such as healthcare, significant infrastructure and defense.
Many channel users: WhatsApp threatens VLOPSovereign clouds as part of digital sovereignty
European politicians look at the sovereign cloud as part of the debate about digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy to avoid excessive dependence on American services, which increases in view of US President Trump’s “US First” agenda. Finally, for European cloud providers, sovereignty is an opportunity for discrimination. On the other hand, the US Hypersscales marketing their own “sovereign” services, however, faced doubts in users.
Mitchell explains that neither sovereign is a binding definition of cloud nor GDPR requirements in terms of data processing in Cloud. This ensures legal uncertainty and allows European and American cloud providers to describe their services as a sovereign. In addition, the Data Act will bring more obligations for cloud providers from September 2025.
Therefore, the researcher suggests that the cloud industry, in coordination with regulatory authorities, develops a general sovereign cloud code of conduct, which takes into account the needs of the GDPR and Data Act. The Soegeugn Cloud Code of Conducts should ensure legal certainty with providers such as users and ensure that the risks for those whose data are processed are minimized. To do this, they should be provided to reduce the access of foreign governments for various models, which are not subject to hosting among European providers-technical measures such as pseudo-name or encryption Are.
the study Sovereign clouds for Europe The sovereign discusses other aspects of the cloud and is available for free download.
(OD)
Many channel users: WhatsApp threatens VLOP
