Cloud Computing Regulation and Government News

Kyndryl signs agreement with HMRC to modernise critical tax infrastructure for UK citizens

Kyndryl, an IT infrastructure services provider, has partnered with HMRC through to end of September 2024.

Drawing on Kyndryl’s position in managed services, the deal will see Kyndryl continue to manage a proportion of HMRC’s (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) mainframe services while Kyndryl Consult will undertake discovery work to prepare for cloud migration and modernisation. Building on an existing relationship, Kyndryl will now continue to accelerate the...

11 September 2023 | Banking & Finance

Seagate, Erez Baum: How to deal with cloud security and compliance

Could you tell us a little bit about your company? What type of products and services do you offer?

We craft the datasphere, helping to maximise humanity’s potential by innovating world-class, precision-engineered data storage and management solutions with a focus on sustainable partnerships. A global technology leader for more than 40 years, the company has shipped over three billion terabytes of data capacity.

Have there been any particularly interesting developments...

9 September 2022 | Regulation & Government

OVHcloud submits antitrust complaint on Microsoft’s EU cloud services

OVHcloud, a French cloud computing company, has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft to the EU’s top competition regulator, the European Commission.

The complaint, first reported on by the Wall Street Journal, focuses on Microsoft’s licencing of its products, such as its Office software suite. It was filed last summer but has only recently come to light.

OVHcloud says this licencing makes it more expensive to use cloud services that compete with Microsoft...

17 March 2022 | Microsoft

EU body to investigate public sector usage of cloud services

The EU’s privacy watchdog, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), has launched joint investigations with 22 national regulators into public sector usage of cloud services.

More than 80 public bodies from across the European Economic Area (EEA) will be investigated, covering sectors from health and education to tax and finance, to ensure compliance with privacy safeguards.

Plans to target public sector cloud services were announced last October, but 15 February...

17 February 2022 | AWS

Singapore’s HTX taps Microsoft for city-state’s first sovereign cloud

Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology agency (HTX) has called on Microsoft to develop its sovereign cloud.

The agency promotes technological adoption across Singapore’s Home Team departments, which are responsible for national security, policing, civil defence, and immigration.

HTX said the project will accelerate digital transformation and allow domestic services such as the police to deliver improved safety and security to all Singaporean...

15 February 2022 | Cloud Migration

Defence Innovation Unit taps Google Cloud for its cloud security

The Defence Innovation Unit (DIU), a part of the Department of Defence (DoD) focused on scaling commercial technology across the US military, has contracted Google Cloud for its secure cloud management (SCM) solution.

With plans to be implemented across the DIU’s systems, Google anticipates the possibility of further adoption amongst defence agencies worldwide.

SCM is a container-based solution developed in partnership with Palo Alto Networks for secure application...

9 February 2022 | Collaboration

Alibaba’s cloud arm facing US national security probe

Alibaba’s cloud wing is being reviewed by the Biden administration to determine if it poses a risk to US national security, according to Reuters.

The probe is investigating how the company stores US client data, including personal information and intellectual property, and whether the Chinese government could gain access to it.

Concerns also centre around whether Beijing could disrupt access to information stored on Alibaba’s cloud.

Alibaba’s operations...

19 January 2022 | Alibaba Cloud

Prudential Regulation Authority concerned over banks’ reliance on cloud

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), responsible for regulating UK banks, credit unions, and insurers, plans to increase its scrutiny of major cloud computing providers.

Concerns stem from the growing reliance the banking sector has on the Big Three to maintain its systems and the threat an outage or hack could pose.

As a result, the PRA is looking into ways to access more data from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, particularly in relation to the operation resilience...

10 January 2022 | AWS

JEDI: Oracle and Google enter the bidding war for Pentagon cloud contract

The prolonged JEDI war - between Amazon and Microsoft, not Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker - for the $10 billion contract to modernise the US Department of Defence's (DoD) cloud infrastructure has entered a new saga.

Microsoft won the Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (JEDI) contract back in 2019, although its victory was short-lived when Amazon filed for and won an injunction due to potential presidential interference in 2020.

Since then, the Pentagon ruled that...

23 November 2021 | AWS

France unveils €1.8 billion fund for nation’s cloud sector

France has announced a €1.8 billion (£1.53bn) support plan for the nation’s cloud computing sector to keep the country competitive on a global scale.

The plan is divided into a €667 million care package for public financing, a €444 million boost to European Union financing, and a €680 million stimulus for private co-financing.

Thus far, 23 research and development projects have already been selected, making up €421 million of the public financing...

3 November 2021 | Cloud Computing