European distrust of US data security creates market

Concern in the European Union that U.S. data protection laws are too lax has created a new market for European cloud computing services.

A recent survey indicated that 70 percent of Europeans have concerns about their online data and how so then companies secure it and now two Swedish companies, Severalnines and City Network, have begun promoting their newly merged service as "a safe haven from the reaches of the U.S. Patriot Act." In accordance with the U.S. Patriot Act, data from European users of U.S.-based cloud services can secretly be seized by U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Service owned

"We believe that a service owned and operated locally in the E.U., and fully compliant with E.U. data protection laws, will be very attractive for European companies. U.S. companies with European operations will as well benefit from the lower latency of a locally hosted solution," said City Network chairman Johan Christenson.

"It is crucial, for European businesses and users, that the data on the cloud is stored in a safe country," said Philippe Juvin, a Member of the European Parliament, on Thursday.

The challenge of implementing protection

Many organisations face the challenge of implementing protection and data security measures to meet a wide range of requirements that lie beyond regulatory compliance. This whitepaper highlights the basics of identifying key business drivers for data security, describes threats and attacks, summarizes security concepts and relationships, and at that time describes what constitutes storage security.