The French Data Sovereignty Wake-Up Call
“No,” said Carniaux, “I cannot guarantee that.”
Carniaux was answering a question about whether he could guarantee that data on French citizens would require explicit French government approval before transmission to the US.
The CLOUD Act Creates Jurisdictional Override Problems
The “CLOUD Act” (essentially a jurisdictional override) means US cloud providers cannot guarantee data sovereignty to European/Nordic customers.
Article (The Register): Microsoft admits it ‘cannot guarantee’ data sovereignty
Why Platform Flexibility Matters More Than Ever
This regulatory complexity is why platform flexibility matters in modernization strategies. Modernization stacks should guarantee deployment across EVERY platform, not just one—on-premise, any cloud, IBM Z, or EU-sovereign clouds with resident infrastructure like STACKIT and OVHcloud.
AWS Responds Defensively
AWS recently opined with a defensive blog (below) attempting to minimize these concerns, but their statistical framing actually reinforces the problem—more on that in part 2.
Article (AWS): Five facts about how the CLOUD Act actually works
Your Turn: What’s Driving Your Modernization Strategy?
What regulatory and/or platform considerations are driving your discussions around IBM Mainframe modernization initiatives? How are you mitigating any risks or concerns?