Deutsche Telekom plans Airbus slam to allow Big Tech access to EU cloud data By Reuters

By Puyunchi

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom (OTC:), Orange, Airbus and 15 other EU companies have tabled a proposal allowing bids from Amazon (NASDAQ:), Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google and Microsoft (NASDAQ:). criticized. Highly sensitive EU cloud computing agreement.

Belgium’s draft plan, currently touring the European Union presidency, is for a certification scheme (EUCS) that would ensure the cybersecurity of cloud services and help governments and businesses in the bloc choose secure and trustworthy providers.

The proposal replaces the so-called sovereignty requirements of a previous draft that would have obligated U.S. tech giants to store and process customer data in the bloc by forming joint ventures with or working with EU-based companies to qualify at the highest level. Dispose of it. EU cyber security label.

The Belgian plan is due to be discussed by cybersecurity experts from the EU’s 27 countries on April 15, which could pave the way for the European Commission to adopt the cybersecurity plan in the northern hemisphere fall.

EU countries should reject this latest proposal without sovereignty requirements, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Airbus and 15 other companies said in a joint letter to their national authorities and senior Commission officials.

“It is necessary to include EU-HQ and European control requirements in key plans to mitigate the risk of illicit data access based on foreign laws,” they said in the letter seen by Reuters.

Without these requirements, they warned, European data could be accessed by foreign governments based on laws such as the U.S. Cloud Act or China’s National Intelligence Act.

Big Tech is looking to the lucrative government cloud market to fuel growth, while the EU fears illegal state surveillance and dominance by U.S. cloud providers.

EU companies said the EU cybersecurity label was created to reduce the EU’s dependence on Silicon Valley giants and should follow the example of Europe’s Gaia-X cloud computing platform, which has sovereignty requirements.

They said the lack of a sovereignty clause may hinder nascent EU cloud providers compared to their larger US competitors.

“Removing these requirements from the plan would seriously undermine the viability of sovereign cloud solutions in Europe, many of which are in development or already on the market,” the company said.

Signatories of the joint letter include French power group EDF (EPA:), French cloud service provider OVHcloud and Italian colleagues Aruba, Dassault Systemes and Germany’s Ionos; telecom italy (BIT:), Austria’s Exoscale, French technology companies Capgemini and Eutelsat.

(This story has been corrected in paragraph 4 to fix the meeting date as April 15, not March 15.)