Thursday, 12 November 2015 00:19
BERLIN: US tech giant Microsoft said Wednesday it is setting up centres to keep customer data in Germany, following a series of US surveillance scandals that have alarmed Europeans.
Deutsche Telekom will serve as “custodian” for Microsoft’s cloud-based services in Germany and keep data on its home turf, the companies said in separate statements.
“All customer data will remain exclusively in Germany,” Deutsche Telekom said, adding that the service will also be available to European clients outside Germany.
“With this partnership with T-Systems, Microsoft customers can choose a data protection level that complies with the requirements of German customers and many clients of the public sector,” added Anette Bronder, director of the new Digital Division of the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems.
Microsoft will from the second half of 2016 run its German cloud-based services through two data centres where Deutsche Telekom will assume responsibility for “protection of customer data and access to it”.
“Microsoft will have no access to the data if T-Systems or the customer do not allow it,” the statement said.
The US group confirmed the point in a separate communique but neither made mention of the espionage revelations that have strained transatlantic ties.
Trust in US tech companies has been shaken since former US National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed a worldwide surveillance programme exploiting user data harvested from Silicon Valley giants.
