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Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

computerweekly.com

1–10 of 11 posts

Re: Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

#4
Good? Law enforcement shouldn't be relying on pinky-promises of foreign corporations that they'll keep information confidential anyway, so if this keeps them from using MS SaaS, all the better. That this will force Scotland to develop enough native IT expertise to replace these services (which may one day grow into a viable business) is just an added bonus.

Re: Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

#5

Good? Law enforcement shouldn't be relying on pinky-promises of foreign corporations that they'll keep information confidential anyway, so if this keeps them from using MS SaaS, all the better. That this will force Scotland to develop enough native IT expertise to replace these services (which may one day grow into a viable business) is just an added bonus.

Scotland has less than a tenth of the population of England, and 0 cloud regions.

Around ~70,000 workers in IT/Tech and only two or three real colo datacentres of any note (>140 racks).

Re: Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

#6
Is it just me or this a non-story? Police Scotland (rightly, and apparently thoroughly) did due diligence on whether O365 is suitable for their use case, and Microsoft (rightly) told them no it’s not. And yet somehow there’s a Lib Dem peer saying we need “UK Cloud capability” as if it’s some sort of nuclear arsenal rather than software running in data centres.

Re: Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

#7
post #6

Is it just me or this a non-story? Police Scotland (rightly, and apparently thoroughly) did due diligence on whether O365 is suitable for their use case, and Microsoft (rightly) told them no it’s not. And yet somehow there’s a Lib Dem peer saying we need “UK Cloud capability” as if it’s some sort of nuclear arsenal rather than software running in data centres.

In all fairness, I don't see how they're wrong in saying we need a UK Cloud Capability even if phrased 'as if it’s some sort of nuclear arsenal'. It is actually quite problematic that falling out with Microsoft would mean the entire country grounding to a halt at best.

Re: Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

#9
post #5

Good? Law enforcement shouldn't be relying on pinky-promises of foreign corporations that they'll keep information confidential anyway, so if this keeps them from using MS SaaS, all the better. That this will force Scotland to develop enough native IT expertise to replace these services (which may one day grow into a viable business) is just an added bonus.

Scotland has less than a tenth of the population of England, and 0 cloud regions. Around ~70,000 workers in IT/Tech and only two or three real colo datacentres of any note (>140 racks).

What they need is the functional equivalent of a basement with filing cabinets. And used to be just that. Countries of any size should do this in-house. I cannot overemphasize how bad an idea outsourcing police records is.

And did we forget computers were supposed to make paperwork easier? And now just storing the paperwork requires a foreign multinational company.

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