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Time and time again people can hear references to “data Schengen area” or “fortress Europe”. While some people raise concerns about the negative impact of such regional approach, others consider that reinforcing regional clouds might be the appropriate solution.
During this second event of the OpenForum Academy Round Tables’ Programme, stakeholders from industry, European policy-making, academia and community looked at the policy and legal implications of regional cloud. To set up the context, Professor Millard described the historical context and the concept of “balkanisation” of the cloud and then he pointed out the difficulties of defining a “Europe-only cloud”. Following his intervention, Mr Graux, the editor of the EU Code of Conduct, described the drafting work and the outcomes of this industry-led non-binding text. Before passing to the interactive discussion with an audience of more than 45 participants, Mr Troyon Rama represented point of view of the industry and conveyed IBM’s observations about the shape of the European Cloud market opportunity as well as client feedback on what are their key priorities and concerns, majoring on how of new technologies are powerful enablers of innovation and economic growth.
The audience actively participated in the discussions, addressing several aspects of data storage localisation and its justification. The interventions raised concerns about the consequences of polarised debates, they touched the existing emotional justifications underlying the choices of data centres and also looked at alternative solutions to ensure data protection and privacy. Many of these points found the consensus of the participants to the event.