The Good Journal #6 - The Importance of Digital Sovereignty
Imagine this scenario: without a second thought, you upload an important report to the usual big tech cloud provider service we’ve all used at times. It’s omnipresent and often pre-installed on your device—it’s been your go-to service for sharing business files. But today, as you tap the upload button to send it to “the cloud,” your eyes wander out of your office window. At the same moment you upload your report, a strong wind carries a little cloud in the sky away at a remarkable speed. Suddenly, you wonder about the journey your report is starting on.
The truth is, our clouds, and our data, are whisked away by the winds and end up hovering over distant countries with different laws and views on privacy. This casual relinquishing of control allows our data to be governed by other laws, other companies, and other values. Our data has been ensnared with convenient services and less pleasant actions, often without our conscious awareness.
Regardless of whether you approve of the laws and companies where your little report cloud now hovers, relinquishing control of our data in this way is inherently problematic. While we strive for clearer and updated privacy laws in Europe, those laws would fail to impact what is happening to your data if its cloud has been blown to the other side of the world. There are very clear differences in data privacy laws throughout the world, and your data might be kept, scanned, used, traded, sold, or even printed out and folded into origami, all without you ever knowing.
At TheGoodCloud, we keep your data in the Netherlands. It only ventures out on your own devices if you’ve synced it yourself. By default, it all stays in the Netherlands. Using our services, your little report cloud stays snugly above Amsterdam.
Resulting in benefits from laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is the most comprehensive data protection law globally, with a strong emphasis on user rights such as the right of access, right to rectification, right to be forgotten, and data portability. GDPR also mandates data processors to maintain higher standards of data security.
Then there’s the Network and Information Security Directive (NISD): the first piece of EU-wide cybersecurity legislation. The NISD sets another layer of security requirements for businesses operating in critical sectors and digital service providers.
In contrast, some foreign laws include China’s cybersecurity law (CSL), which increases the government’s access to company data and creates uncertainty with ambiguous language, broad, and vague provisions. It requires the data of services offered by Chinese companies to be stored on servers within China, potentially exposing it to state surveillance.
The US, until recently, relied mostly on self-regulation and doesn’t have a comprehensive federal-level privacy law comparable to the GDPR. The CLOUD Act allows federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers, regardless of whether the data is stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil. So even when a US-based company assures you that your data is securely stored in the EU, their company will still have to comply with US laws, potentially poking and prodding your poor little lost report cloud.
With TheGood.Cloud, data sovereignty isn’t just an option—it’s a guarantee. We are a Dutch company and host your files on our own servers in the Netherlands.
Ready to exercise more control over your business data? Discover the difference with TheGood.Cloud. Bring that little report cloud home!
