EDITOR ’ S COMMENT are duty bound to protect that data . It ’ s a social contract , which regulations like GDPR make enforceable by law .
To truly succeed in EMEA , technology and cloud providers must understand that privacy and trust is a cultural cornerstone of European society . Both global and regional providers must be aware of the intricacies of European privacy and sovereignty to appropriately meet customer expectations .
For example , the GAIA-X project initiated by representatives from business , science and politics aim to create a proposal for a nextgeneration European data infrastructure . The vision is to create a digital ecosystem where data and services can be made available , collated and shared in an environment of trust for Europe and beyond . The implications of this for cloud providers doing business in EMEA could be damaging if it is perceived that their own methods of collecting , sharing and protecting data do not align with European privacy values .
This is just another example of my belief that technology and business is all about people . The cultural attitudes towards privacy across the world are a challenge big tech companies are still getting to grips with .
It has an immense and complex history based on the social , political and economic experiences of every individual nation .
The same as it is for banks to look after their customers ’ money , businesses using data to gather valuable , monetisable insights are duty bound to protect that data .
The fact remains that privacy is a human right , and this is not something big tech can expect to trample on . The cloud industry in particular , must embrace this rather than battle against it to continue the rapid growth it has seen in the past decade . •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS Issue 48 17