Canada is an alternative to host your data outside the US and EU for Cloud, VMs and Dedicated Servers
I’m making this post because we’ve been getting a flood of queries and customers from these markets lately, some are US companies, some are EU companies and many are international companies who are concerned about their company or data being seized.
In recent years, many companies and individuals have learned that putting your company’s data, whether intellectual property or even e-mails is not safe in the US or EU. Both jurisdictions have restrictive laws and massive surveillance. The US and EU have proven that they can seize your company or data through any number of means, whether via hacking, intelligence operations or even directly breaking strong EU privacy laws. If they want your data, they will just seize it from the Cloud or the Dedicated Servers that host your application/cluster.
If you want to be secure, you should never use an EU or US company, even if the company has services or servers outside of those jurisdictions, they will be compelled by the EU or US to access and share your data. For example a lot of people use OVH for Canadian VMs or Servers but they are a France based, EU company, so your privacy will only be as good as EU law. France itself has proven that they cannot be trusted with your data, and they are also an EU member so there are many routes for your data to be compromised when using an EU or US company with servers in Canada.
Why Canada?
The internet is more open than the EU, and the US. Canada does not jail or fine you for reposting news reports or articles that they disagree with. The US has developed numerous laws over the last 20 years that continue to threaten companies’ today, including the Patriot Act, FISA, the CLOUD ACT and of course the largest surveillance in the world, known as PRISM.
Why not the EU or US?
I decided it wasn’t necessary to show the many examples of US data insecurity issues, let alone their laws.
I’ve written about numerous examples of EU privacy laws being meaningless such as:
Hungary’s breach of EU law to seize an office of servers.
Switzerland’s Meaningless Privacy Laws
German Cloud Provider allegedly tapped client’s by government order
Pros of Canada
Canada has direct land based connectivity to the US so hosting in a place like Toronto through a Hong Kong company like Techrich makes a lot of sense. You’ll get lower ping to the US and applications will work and feel like they are hosted in the US to US users and of course users in Canada will be served well. Toronto, is actually the #3 largest Internet Exchange Hub in North America, so this means it beats out all but 2 US exchanges.
Canada also has excellent connectivity to Asia and the EU.
Cons of Canada
Canada, generally does not have its own internet, so much of the traffic is intercepted by the US in transit. However, most traffic only stays local if it’s within the same ISP or region. Even data sent between Vancouver and Toronto will often route via Seattle and Chicago. However, hosting just across the border avoids the easy and constant seizure threat from EU and US authorities.
Given that Canada is still a member of PRISM and it shares a border with the US, it is not going to be as resilient or safe as a jurisdiction like Hong Kong or Turkey, to host your data.
Conclusion
If you need to serve the North American market, Canada, especially Toronto is the best location in North America to do so, it has reliable power, safer internet and is not as easy for the EU or US to arbitrarily reach. Given the geopolitical situation, Canada will become a more important player in internet services for both EU, US and international companies seeking a middle ground between market access and some privacy. You should not host your data/servers/services in the EU or US unless mandated by law or regulation, and companies should be reminded not to use an EU or US company to host their data and to ensure their service provider is also not using an insecure country to host services they provide to you.
