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Amazon and Google Barred From UK Government Cloud

Posted by Soulskill on from the us-government-disappointed dept.

judgecorp writes "Amazon and Google both applied for a role in the U.K. government's 'G-Cloud' for public services, but were rejected, a FOI request has revealed. It is most likely this was because of concerns about where data was hosted and backed up. Amazon Web Services has a dedicated cloud service for the government in the U.S., but has not been able to duplicate that in Britain."

18 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Gee... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

    How could a government possibly turn down a chance to offshore a major chunk of its IT operations?

    Apparently some governments have better sense than some businesses.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:Gee... by zevans · · Score: 2

      Apparently some governments have better sense than some businesses.

      Indeed. I know it doesn't look like it sometimes, but the purpose of Government is to prevent Tragedy of the Commons, and to my mind "buy the lowest cost irrespective of value delivered" is very much Tragedy of the Commons when discussing tax dollars.

      In a similar way, current stock market behaviour actively encourages "reduce cost at all cost" and there's yer problem. Many companies in the UK have begun moving services back onshore once the revenue impact of the customer backlash started to bite. It's a pity they couldn't see that coming.

      --
      "... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
  2. Why cloud? by fufufang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they run their own datacenter and have centralised IT services, rather than relying on some third party private company? Is it because they want to have someone to blame if things do go wrong?

    1. Re:Why cloud? by Kugrian · · Score: 2

      Hiring a company that already knows how to do this stuff is probably a hell of a lot cheaper in the short run than funding a new one.

    2. Re:Why cloud? by Custard+Horse · · Score: 2

      The UK Gov actually has the Government Gateway which is a secure system that was meant to be all encompassing.

      Originally there was a large budget approved to set up a skeleton network which would eventually be extended to replace the many legacy systems in the NHS and all government departments. I seem to recall that there was a mirrored multi-petabyte storage array for records to begin with.

      However, part way through the implementation someone pulled the plug and left a partly implemented system which deals with income tax returns and a few benefits such as disability living allowance and child benefit. None of the NHS departments are on the system.

      The plug appears to have been pulled as whilst the budget was approved, a government minister was charged with the task of saving money and this was done by canning the project part way through is the easiest way.

      e.g. get a budget for £50 million > spend £5 million > can the project > save £45 million > result! The government gateway was what was left of the project which is some distance from the original goal.

      Lies, damned lies and statistics... [sigh]

  3. US Law Everywhere by ebonum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If a company has any operations in the US, they are expected to follow US law worldwide. Even if the parent is in Germany and the offense occurred by a subsidiary in the Philippines, the US government has no qualms about going after their US arm. If this wasn't bad enough, it isn't always the Federal government. If the NY State attorney general thinks a foreign company has some dealings with Iran, he will not hesitate to pursue legal action.

    If I was the UK government, how would I feel about the possibility of some low level government guy in Seattle saying, I can get to everything in the UK cloud without a warrant?

    Obama administration is "arguing that you lose your property rights by storing something on a cloud computing service"
    Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/governments-attack-cloud-computing

    If you use the cloud, only do it for data you are willing to openly publish.

    1. Re:US Law Everywhere by matunos · · Score: 3

      Or, you know, encrypt it.

    2. Re:US Law Everywhere by Sabriel · · Score: 2

      You know, "encrypt it" might work for an individual, but no amount of encryption can make storing your entire nation's digital infrastructure in a foreign country's server farms a reasonable idea.

    3. Re:US Law Everywhere by deniable · · Score: 2

      US hosted or owned become subject to the Patriot act and friends as well. We're not allowed to use offshore hosting and we also exclude anything owned or run by US companies even if it's a local datacentre.

    4. Re:US Law Everywhere by Coisiche · · Score: 2

      Would that mean if Liz (you know, the queen) ever visited the US, the border people would say "Right, hand over the encryption keys"?

  4. Privacy/security/responsibility by justsomecomputerguy · · Score: 2

    I'll bet is was because both of them had unacceptable policies regarding privacy, security/integrity and/or what they are responsible to do if a breach does occur. I'll also bet that those same policies were/are acceptable to various branches of American government, because our standards for those issues here in The United States lag waaaaay behind European standards.

  5. Hey, U-K, get off of my cloud! by theodp · · Score: 2

    THE ROLLING STONES GET OFF MY CLOUD
    Hey, you, get off of my cloud
    Hey, you, get off of my cloud
    Hey, you, get off of my cloud
    Don't hang around, baby two's a crowd
    On my cloud

  6. Re:Imagine that... by isaac · · Score: 5, Informative

    And um, regarding comments on off-shoring data/services, Amazon certainly does have cloud services that run on hosts in the UK... Dublin mostly. (There may be open questions about the parent company being US-based, but those wouldn't have to do with the geographic location of the services and data, which surely would be hosted from the Dublin data centers.)

    I feel compelled to point out that Dublin, Republic of Ireland (where Amazon does indeed have datacenters) is most definitely not in the UK.

    --
    I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
  7. Google jizz data everywhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I stopped using Google search (switch to Duck Duck Go), because I'd search for one thing (Divorce lawyer) and they'd start showing adverts for divorce lawyers to me soon to be ex wife and every other computer on my NAT. At some point, you'll draw the line and say enough, and you'll divorce them too.

    I know its not the same thing with their online office apps, but once they started down the Facebook route, you only need to look at FB and see where Google will end up.

    If UK.gov has data on UK citizens, then it cannot hand that data out to a cloud service, it's not just the fact the US helps itself to that data and thus has all sorts . There's plenty of local office tools, you don't need to be stuck with Microsoft, you can do a perfectly workable local solution at a fraction of the cost without going cloud.

    Also as long as USA is building up data on its own citizens, doesn't enforce it's privacy for its own citizens, why on earth would you give them a single byte of data willingly?

  8. Re:Implications of tax avoidance by US companies by bloodhawk · · Score: 2

    It is a serious problem all around the world, I don't blame the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft etc taking advantage of it as after all it is legal, but damn the countries affected need to wake up and change their tax laws to stop this crap happening. They don't even have to give them harsh treatment, just bring them into line with what the respective company tax rates are for each company, the best start is to block local government contracts if they are funnelling the proceeds through international tax havens. Basically similar to what the UK have done with the cloud providers but more widespread.

  9. Patriot act? by plankrwf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually read the article (I know, against /. policy ;-0), read most of the comments, and nowhere read anything about it possible being related to the patriot act. I happen to know that the patriot act is (one of) the reason(s) the Dutch government will not enter into an agreement with American hosting providers, surely the British have similar reservations?
    (And yes, the article is scarce on facts, so cannot check whether all American companies are excluded, but heck: so could none of the other people posting a reply).

    So:
    MY guess is that the patriot act played a mayor role in letting this business opportunity slip trough the fingers of american companies...

  10. Re:Imagine that... by deniable · · Score: 3, Informative

    16th century give or take.

  11. Hey China, keep your mil stuff in the USA! by fantomas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am sure national governments will be really happy about storing their private/ secret data in another country's territory "because it's encrypted so it will be safe".

    Would the US government network be happy about a Chinese commercial provider supplying their network provision on Chinese territory? without auditing the network? From the article: "Amazon had concerns over the stipulation that the UK government could audit US data centres" - Amazon were asking the UK government to store their data on another country's territory, and not even be given permission to check how the centres were secured? Not surprised the UK government weren't too keen on this deal.