The move is a response to the revelations about the NSA’s data collection from secure sites.
ANS Group’s Scott Fletcher
UK cloud infrastructure specialists ANS Group have reported on the shift in mentality from UK businesses, who are “look[ing] to store data outside of the US cloud” network with companies such as Google and Microsoft, as a consequence of the reveal of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) “Prism” data collection system by former employee Edward Snowden.
Both Google and Microsoft have “admitted that they allow ‘lawful’ transmission of data through the NSA”, according to ANS, and there are claims that the NSA has “direct access” to the data stored by both cloud providers already mentioned as well as others, including Amazon and Apple. As a consequence, UK companies are looking elsewhere, which could cost US cloud providers around £20 billion ($32.8 billion/€24.1 billion) in future business.
To add to this, an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) survey found that 10 percent of non-US companies had “cancelled projects with US-based cloud providers”, with 36 percent of providers noting that the revelations about Prism had made it “more difficult for them to find business outside the US”.
Daniel Castro, Author of the ITIF survey, noted that it “seemed acceptable to assume that US cloud providers would lose 10 or 20 percent of their overseas business to companies based outside the US”, and in turn it’s estimated that by 2016 50 percent of cloud computing businesses “will be operating from outside the US”, with the global market expected to be worth $207 billion (€152 billion).
Scott Fletcher, Founder and Chairman of ANS Group, stated: “People in the UK have been reticent for a while about putting data into the US because of the Patriot Act, which means the government there can pretty much get access to everything.
“Prism has put into peoples’ minds that there might be co-operation in the UK with that. People talk to us and want their own private cloud service, because they know we don’t have that sort of relationship with the government. They want all the services to be based in the UK, rather than using Google or Amazon Web Services.”