Certification forces departments to use Australian data centres. By David Braue on Jun 15 2021 10:48 AM Print article
Australian government data to remain onshore. Photo: Shutterstock
Government agencies must only store sensitive information in data centres certified under the new Hosting Certification Framework (HCF), with the first providers now accredited in a scheme designed to marginalise China-owned data centre operators.
Australian Data Centres (ADC), Canberra Data Centres (CDC), and Macquarie Telecom (Canberra Campus) are now the only three companies allowed to host Australian government data, after they were certified under the HCF released in March by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA).
The move is the latest step in a Whole of Government Hosting Strategy that has amongst its key pillars the goal of protecting Australian government data with “robust, risk-based assessments to ensure data sovereignty and supply chain integrity”.
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The concept of ‘sovereignty’ has recently gained new life in Australia and around the world. Increased tensions with China, a constant flow of fake news, frequent references to cyberattacks conducted by sophisticated state actors, and public announcements on foreign espionage have placed sovereignty front and centre in the Australian psyche. We’re in an era of cyber spies and cyber warriors.
Territorial sovereignty has always been understood and accepted. Increasing geopolitical uncertainty for Australia has seen political and economic sovereignty dominate conversations from the barbecue to the boardroom.
But Facebook’s recent shutdown of its Australian services has brought
digital sovereignty squarely into the national consciousness. Digital sovereignty is harder to explain and conceptualise. In turning off our digital assets, Facebook said to the world that any nation’s digital sovereignty the data each nation publishes on its platform is Facebook’s to control as