France Moves to Stop Data Sharing with US

Under the CLOUD Act, companies registered in the United States are obligated to share with U.S. authorities data belonging to foreign entities. France’s top cybersecurity official, Guillaume Poupard is working to stop that practice.

Poupard, who is the director general of ANSSI–France’s cybersecurity agency–wants to stop cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google from sharing data on European Union citizens, especially data related to health care and financial services.

ANSSI is developing a certification program to create stricter guidelines for data sharing. According to Politico, the new rules would stop American and Chinese companies from offering critical services in Europe. The intent is to ensure that only EU laws apply to EU data.

The rules are being finalized by ANSSI, but will require the approval of other European leaders. U.S. companies have already begun working to comply with the ANSSI’s goals. Google has partnered with German telecom company ​​Deutsche Telekom to provide Google services with local controls over data, and French firms Capgemini and Orange will partner with Microsoft to provide a similar service.

Politico posits that this move is part of a larger trend by EU governments toward independence from foreign data handlers. The rules “will be a real test, a real objective for the political will to achieve strategic autonomy in the digital field,” Poupard said to Politico. “If we’re not capable to say this, the notion of European sovereignty doesn’t make sense.”