In light of the recent Safe Harbour and data protection upheavals across Europe, US tech firms face significant challenges with data transferring between the U.S. and Europe, setting an interesting debate amongst leading IT providers and policymakers on the “Made in Germany” concept at the 2016 DatacenterDynamics at CeBIT conference and expo next March in Hannover.
With an official endorsement from the European Parliament, the event will explore how the rising popularity of the “Made in Germany” tag, advocating for localised content, will impact regional and international IT infrastructure providers.
“Data security is a rising concern for all EU member states as technology becomes fundamental to every layer of the modern business and to the personal lives of all its citizens. EU policymakers play a crucial role in safeguarding data whilst ensuring a fair policy for international companies” says George Rockett, CEO & Co-founder of DatacenterDynamicsAs Silicon Valley groups are still struggling to regain the trust of European customers in the wake of leaks by Edward Snowden about US mass surveillance, these revelations together with the Safe Harbour overruling require US firms to rethink their data center strategy in Europe.
Prominent privacy advocate and Member of the European Union Jan Albrecht will be opening next year’s event as Official Patron, discussing The EU’s pending release of the revised General Data Protection Regulation against backdrop of the Safe Harbour ruling.
“As the rapporteur of the European Parliament in Brussels I was responsible for the EU data protection regulation, which has been completed successfully. I am pleased to see that so many European companies are taking part at DatacenterDynamics at CeBIT and hope that the event with conference, exhibition and matchmaking helps to generate growth. This initiative has my full support, and I encourage participants to enter into a dialogue with these companies to come up with a solution. This is why I am more than pleased to take over the patronage of DCD at CeBIT in 2016”.
Microsoft has gone above and beyond with not only opening new data centers in Germany, but to hand over the keys of their new cloud data centers to T-Systems, the subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, making T-Systems essentially the “custodian” of customer data, ensuring it stays exclusively in Germany.
Microsoft’s initiative could have a ripple effect across the industry, creating a strict new policy standard that customers may soon also request from other cloud providers such as Amazon, Google and Oracle, who all have recently announced the opening of new facilities in Germany.
“Made in Germany” the new data Safe Haven?
The new ruling also allowed national data-protection authorities within the EU to have the right to independently examine firms which transfer personal data across the Atlantic. Germany in this case is known to have one of the strictest data privacy policies within the EU, which is ultimately driving global providers to open their operations in the region.
However, will the surge towards data localisation hinder or develop growth in Germany and the EU? Where will the road take the industry post the Safe-Harbour ruling and how will it impact local and international providers?
“Organisations need to both gain the trust of their global customers and operate globally as well as locally. This requires the forging of strong partnerships as seen with the Microsoft and T-Systems alliance. DCD at CeBIT brings together key policy-makers, international and local providers in Hall 12 to discuss how the data center industry, the lifeblood of the digital economy, can ensure that the systems our society relies upon are available and protected at all times”, adds Rockett.
Register today! More information on the conference programme and the expo can be found online and more detailed requests for information can be directed to Merima Dzanic