About 25% of UK and Canadian businesses are considering relocating their company information outside the US over National Security Agency (NSA)-related privacy and security concerns, a new survey revealed.
According to a survey by Peer 1 Hosting, Canadian firms are reportedly more likely to move data compared to UK firms, with one-third of them prefer to move away from US data centres.
In addition, about 51% of these firms consider US as top place to host data outside of their home countries, despite the trend.
About 82% of firms considered privacy laws as top concern when selecting where to host their data, amid growing privacy concerns in the wake of the NSA scandals and the ‘summer of Snowden’.
However, about 81% of businesses want to know where exactly their data is being hosted, the report added.
PEER 1 Hosting business development SVP Robert Miggins said with data privacy and security concerns top of mind after NSA, PRISM and other revelations around the world, businesses in the UK and Canada are taking real action.
"Many are moving data outside of the U.S., and even more are making security and privacy their top concerns when choosing where to host their company data," Miggins said.
"It’s clear that hosting and cloud providers need to take note and offer their customers true choice in terms of the locations and environments where they store their data, ensuring they can maintain security, compliance and privacy to the best extent possible."
About 96% of UK and Canadian businesses were mainly concerned about security while choosing hosting provider, followed by performance (94%) and reputation (87%), with 70% of them agreeing they would give up performance to assure data sovereignty.
Organisations also admit of struggling to fully know current data laws, with 60% do not have the required knowledge about data security laws, with 44% of them consider privacy and security laws baffle them.
