Microsoft Germany is likely to offer a cloud platform hosted by a German partner in a bid to keep German data safe from interception by US security agencies, according to the company's German CEO.

Since the revelations of surveillance by the US National Security Agency, German firms increasingly want to keep data within German borders. Microsoft is considering meeting this need by taking up a partnership with Germany cloud companies for a service which will only handle German data, Microsoft Germany’s CEO Christian Illek said in an interview reported by  Tagesspeigel and Deutsche Welle.

Microsoft’s current European computing centers in the Netherlands and Ireland are becoming increasingly popular with its biggest clients according to Illek - and the Dublin facility is currently at the heart of a row in which Microsoft is trying to protect the emails of a US citizen stored there. Microsoft is currently held to be in contempt of a US court, but is refusing to budge.

The expansion of computer networks has increased security risks for companies said Illek, and that is why Microsoft Germany wants to keep its data within Germany’s borders and hosted by a data center which would be subject to German or European law, Illek said. NSA surveillance of European citizens would be illegal, most sources agree.

Using a German partner should make it even harder for NSA officials to argue that an access would be legal.

Meanwhile, the head of HP Germany, Heiko Meyer has also called for a common Cloud space for Europe, similar to the concept of the EU's economic area.

HP has already submitted plans for "Cloud 28+" to the EU research program Horizon 2020, which is aimed at streamlining European research and innovation to make the 28-member bloc more competitive globally.