Location for Data Centers and Cloud Services
of expertise are IT and technology law. He has been appointed
as an expert lawyer by banks and insurances in negotiating and
implementing many complex IT and outsourcing projects.
works mainly in the areas of IT and IP Law, employment and
inheritance law.
Kreuzstrasse 42
Zurich, Switzerland CH-8008
+41 44 254 99 66 Phone
+41 44 254 99 60 Fax
martin.eckert@mmepartners.ch
stefanie.debrunner@mmepartners.ch
www.mmepartners.ch
centers and cloud services: In Switzer-
land, privacy and data protection have a
longstanding tradition and are respected
both by law and in practice. Judicial aid
is granted restrictively. Data stored by a
Swiss company in Switzerland is there-
fore well protected.
From a privacy point of view, U.S.
providers (in the U.S. or U.S. affiliates
based in Switzerland) have a disadvan-
tage as extraterritorial U.S. law can be
applicable.
Location for Data Centers
leading host country for data centers.
social stability and has one of the
lowest inflation rates worldwide. A
highly competitive business and tax
environment
further advantages.
a low latency period and excellent
data and travel connections to all key
European cities. Furthermore, natural
catastrophes such as earthquakes,
tornadoes and hurricanes are
extremely rare.
enables the processing of high data
volume.
point is sustainability; Switzerland
scores well with its renewable
energies, such as hydroelectric power.
tradition. In the Federal Constitution, data
protection is recognized as an indepen-
mental rights of natural persons and legal
entities whose data is being processed.
security has been the EU Data Protection
Directive. While not a member of the EU,
Switzerland is a member of a very small
club of non-EU countries declared to be
compliant with the EU's requirements for
international data processing. This opens
up opportunities for Swiss businesses to
do cloud computing for other countries,
inside and outside the U.S.
The Swiss data protection level is even
higher than in EU countries. Contrary
to EU-legislation, Swiss law protects not
only personal data, but also data on legal
entities. This is an additional advantage.
European countries (England, France,
Germany), as far as known in the public,
Swiss authorities have not implemented
surveillance like activities such as
PRISM. The access of (Swiss) authorities
to private data is very restricted by law
and in fact.
Swiss Data Protection
publications, data center customers
are increasingly concerned about their
privacy. U.S. and non-U.S. providers of
data and cloud services are faced with
many questions.