If you want to protect your data you should know where it is stored

Different countries have different rules when it comes to who can see the data you store remotely.

In the EU, for example GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requires organisations to protect personal data.

The UK has had its own version since it left the EU.

In the USA, however, US laws give intelligence and law-enforcement services broad powers to access data.

This can produce conflicts for organisations since the data of many European organisations is stored on remote computing and data storage services dominated by US companies including Amazon and Microsoft.

There are moves to create an alternative storage system in Europe out of reach of the US Cloud Act.

377 organisations are participating in the Gaia-X project, which aims to join up cloud service providers in a federated system in Europe with enough strength and capacity to take on the US providers.

Individual countries are also legislating on issues of free speech and protecting citizens around the internet, such as the. The Online Safety Bill, going though UK parliament.

There is also some protection in a new EU-US Data Framework that recently came into force to provide safeguards around personal data.