Top HP cloud exec: snooping happening worldwide
 

A top Hewlett Packard cloud executive has revealed that there has not been a European kick-back in the wake of the NSA's Prism spying revelations, suggesting there's a shared understanding it is happening in "every country around the world".

HP hasn't seen "any adverse reaction as it relates to the cloud," Steve Dietch, vice president, worldwide cloud at HP told TechEye. "Privacy and data sovereignty issues were there before the exposure of that - which to be frankly honest is happening in every country in the world".

The comments come during a US backed manhunt for Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed the extent of spying details to the Washington Post and the Guardian, which showed the United States' secretive NSA, along with other western powers, was maintaining a security network that can intrude on almost everyone in the world.

Dietch suggested companies with sensitive data were already well aware that such dangers exist.

"If you're in a highly regulated environment you are already dealing with privacy and security issues that come into play or are reinforced. If you're an enterprise customer you're already worried about the exposure of your data," Dietch said.

Governments and business are affected because the majority of popular web services are hosted on American soil - and it appears there is a bilateral agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom to tap into each other's data networks, effectively bypassing sovereign law and acquiring such data quasi-legally.

"There's not much you can do if a government has access to your data and is being provided legally, or illegally, depending on the country you're in, with access via your service providers," Dietch said.

"You have to do everything to the best of your ability within your corporate guidelines to adhere to security and data sovereignty policies, that's high on the list," Dietch said. "Security and data sovereignty are a couple of the top issues when getting onto the cloud".

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