The Sovereign Cloud is all about Sovereignty

For Monaco, having its own sovereign cloud is about asserting sovereignty in a digital world dominated by American and Chinese giants.

“I am particularly proud that the Principality of Monaco is the first country in Europe to have a Sovereign State Cloud. This achievement is part of our ambitious policy for the digital development of our economy and constitutes an essential aspect of its attractiveness for our population and all those who wish to come and live here", declared Prince Albert II at the launch of Monaco Cloud in 2021. It must be said that the European continent has taken some time to launch a sovereign cloud. The Gaia-X project, which had been presented as the “first step” towards a “European cloud infrastructure”, took a turn for the worse with the departure of one of its founders, Scaleway. In February 2022, twelve Member States of the EU (France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic) then announced their intention to launch a major sovereign cloud project on a European scale. It took the form of an IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) financed to the tune of 7 billion euros which would involve some 180 European companies. In France, sovereign or trusted cloud initiatives are multiplying, such as OVHcloud, which offers isolation from extraterritorial legislation and SecNumCloud labelling.

The ‘Avoid Cloud’ Act

Why do we want to create a sovereign cloud at all costs? For States, it concerns digital sovereignty. It fights against the domination of American GAFAMs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) and Chinese BATXs (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi) which dominate European markets and put them in a situation of technological dependence by dictating their standards. For the majority of European companies, the shift to the cloud began a decade ago. For lack of a good alternative solution in Europe, 70 to 80% of them outsource their data, including the most confidential, through American leaders such as Amazon or Microsoft. This poses a major security problem, especially after the scandal of the Prism spy program, revealing that the American government had access to data on the servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and Skype… As for the Cloud Act, it clearly authorises the American administration to legally seize emails or any other documents and electronic communications stored on American servers abroad! This extraterritorial law empowers the Administration to claim the data stored on the servers of all service providers working on United States soil, "regardless" of their location.

This is why Monaco entered the race. With a sovereign cloud in which the State is the majority shareholder, the objective is to offer cloud services that meet "the highest technological and security standards" to Government, organizations of vital importance, and private companies. "The most sensitive data can even benefit from a sovereign encryption solution implemented by Monaco Cloud", says the company, recalling that "the operator's infrastructures are located in Monaco". This implies that hosted data is stored in the Principality (transiting through the Monaco Telecom network on Monegasque territory). Placed under Monegasque law, they are not at risk of being exfiltrated since they are not subject to the Patriot Act, the Cloud Act, or any jurisdiction outside Monaco. In 2022, Monaco Cloud services were also certified according to methodology recommended by the Monegasque Cyber Security Agency. An approval that is based on the security policy for State Information Systems Security Policy (PSSIE) aimed at protecting against cyberattacks such as hacking, breaches of privacy and sabotage of information systems. They will soon be qualified as PINH (SecNumCloud equivalent).

Today, Monaco Cloud has 30 clients - businesses and institutions - and already offers “sovereign solutions such as safes, electronic signatures and sovereign encryption”. This offer will soon be expanded with a “new standalone backup and recovery service as well as an optimized and unassailable high-capacity storage service (S3)”, the company recently announced. The launch of its “marketplace” is scheduled for the first half of 2023.

To encourage companies to migrate their infrastructures to the sovereign cloud, Monaco Cloud also has another incentive: the savings generated. Up to 50% over 5 years for a company “compared to the on-site model”*… The State, for its part, sets the example. It has already started migrating its data to the Sovereign Cloud and should complete this operation - codenamed "Gov to cloud" - by the end of 2024/2025.

Milena Radoman

*Source: www.idc.com Fostering Business and Organizational Transformation to Generate Business Value with AWS.