The continuing revelations by former US National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden about the extent of data surveillance are rumbling like thunder around the cloud computing industry.

This is likely to be more than just a passing storm in a tea cup as there could be lasting repercussions on where cloud users and providers store their data.

Companies, governments and the European Parliament are starting to take a long hard look at the whole issue of data sovereignty which may well trigger a rush for securing data on home soil. At this moment the European Parliament is considering a proposal to suspend the ‘US – EU Safe Harbor Framework’ currently in place and so prevent the data flows of EU citizens being passed to American companies – not only this, the motion is also calling for the creation of indigenous European clouds to promote more growth and greater trust in cloud computing …