The trouble that has risen from the US National Security Agency (NSA) revelations about data security has led a number of companies to look at ways to provide promises that data is safe, the latest being Yahoo.

Recent reports have alleged the NSA has been viewing data held by Google and Yahoo.

Google recently said it was working on encryption for its data transmissions, and now Yahoo has promised to secure all data transferred between its data centers by Q1 next year.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said it is the latest move by Yahoo to preserve its user’s trust, adding that the internet company “has never provided access to its data centers to the NSA, or any government agency”.

“As you know, there have been a number of reports over the last six months about the US government secretly accessing user data without the knowledge of tech companies, including Yahoo,” Mayer said.

She said to ensure data is protected in light of the claims Yahoo will be offering users the option of encrypting all data flowing to and from Yahoo data centers by the end of Q1, 2014.

This follows its announcement that encryption will be added to its Yahoo Mail services earlier this month.

Yahoo is not the only service providers looking at ways of protecting the cloud customer base.

At the Fujitsu Forum in Munich earlier this month, company executives said new ways of encrypting and managing data for cloud had to be found to ensure both security and legal compliance.

Fujitsu EVP of solutions Cameron McNaught said he expects the industry will soon see a form of “geotagging” used for data in the cloud that allows packets to be traced as they move between data centers and around cloud networks.

He said this will also provide levels of choice for customers over the location and networks used to transport data.

“It will allow traceability as customers move further into the public cloud,” McNaught said.

This is on top of a data protection module already offered by Fujitsu, offering backups of data in a location of choice.

“It is about having an appreciation of where data is, who has access to it and if it needs to stay in the same country and which staff will manage it” McNaught said.

Fujitsu CTOI Joseph Reger said at present, many service providers are free to transport data in the way that best suits their own networking needs without taking into account the levels of protection such data may require when it moves across international networks.

While McNaught could not confirm Fujitsu’s Labs is working on “geotagging” technology  Reger did say Fujitsu was currently working on a project that would see XML specifications assigned to data and workloads.

He said this will allow service providers to match their own resource capabilities against the specific needs of applications and records to show when files can leave the data center or when they need to travel in particular routes.

“There are cases where there are no restrictions, and service providers are free to do with your jobs and data whatever they want,” Reger said.

“They can put it into countries or store it in countries that are the cheapest at the time.

“We have a written demo of a technology which allows you to design you system, and the level of security or privacy restrictions you want. This can be automated. It is a possibility. We are working on it with a German university now, integrating it with their cloud platform.”

Reger said Fujitsu is designing the technology to be available over third-party services, to almost sit on top of the Cloud.