Swiss telecommunications provider Swisscom is working on the new ‘Swiss Cloud’, amidst snooping of data by US intelligence agencies on tech majors.
Reports reveal that global firms have been increasingly shifting to cloud computing as part of efforts to trim down costs and boost flexibility to their IT divisions.
However, reports of the NSA’s secret efforts to collect user data from nine tech majors including Google, Apple and Facebook presses that users’ privacy of cloud services can be compromised, which boosts demands for substitutes to the US providers to protect data.
Swisscom IT services head Andreas Koenig was cited by Reuters as saying that the company’s decision to establish a home cloud was not linked to the recent NSA disclosures and boosted by a need to bring down costs.
"Data protection and privacy is a long tradition in Switzerland, and that’s why it’s pretty difficult to get to something," Koenig said.
"But if legal requirements are there and we are asked by the judge to obtain or deliver certain information then we would obviously have to comply with it."
Swisscom can only allow accessing information upon receiving an official request from a prosecutor.
However, Swisscom would not be able to assure the security of information that goes beyond borders, including information swapped by employees working in diverse countries.
