The European privacy watchdog has announced the launch of a joint investigation alongside 22 national regulators regarding the use of cloud-based services by the public sector.
Indeed, the investigation aims to make sure that the public sector does comply with its privacy safeguards. It will cover over 80 public bodies across the EEA in health, finance, tax, education, and IT.
This was put into place following the growing demand for data centers by US cloud computing companies from private and public sector organizations. Many public sector organisations have also undergone digital transformations and now face difficulties in obtaining products and services that comply with EU data protection rules.
The GDPR is then designed to protect the privacy rights of EU individuals and applies to all companies processing or controlling the personal information of EU residents, especially as the public and private bodies have been relying more on cloud services from large U.S. providers.
Hence, the EDPB is set to publish a report on the outcome of this investigation by the end of 2022.