Amazon signs data storage deal with UK intelligence

The contract specifies that the data is believed to be held in the UK, and that Amazon will not have access to it.

REUTERS - PASCAL ROSSIGNOL

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

According to information from the

, Amazon has made an agreement with the United Kingdom's intelligence services to host confidential data for espionage purposes.

A contract estimated between 500 million and one billion pounds.

Advertising

Read more

With this agreement, it is Amazon Web Service (AWS), the branch responsible for storing all of Amazon's online data, which will make its cloud available to British intelligence.

Highly secure data will be hosted: those of counter-espionage, internal intelligence or even Her Majesty's eavesdropping service.

It is an agreement that raises some concerns.

On sovereignty first: Amazon Web Service is an American company.

But a source familiar with the matter assures the

that all data will be kept in Great Britain.

And that of course, the company will have no access to the information held on its cloud. 

The objective here is to increase the use of data analysis and artificial intelligence for espionage purposes.

But most importantly, for Ciaran Martin, who is the former head of cybersecurity in the UK, the cloud could allow " 

”.

"Trusted clouds"

At a time of the explosion of data in circulation, British intelligence wants to catch up with its American counterparts.

The CIA signed its first cloud contract in 2013. And it was already with Amazon. 

Europe and France in particular are concerned about entrusting sensitive data, such as personal data on the health of citizens, to the American digital giants.

The French government seeks to promote "clouds of trust", using the technology of the American giants but operated by European companies, in data centers located in Europe.

Google and Thales announced an agreement to this effect in early October, a few months after a neighboring Microsoft announcement with an Orange Capgemini tandem.

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• United States

• New technologies

• UK

• Intelligence