Tech
Heightened global risk pushes interest in data sovereignty | Computer Weekly
Heightened risk related to data sovereignty is universally acknowledged. Most IT decision makers see that risk increasing as a result of geopolitical instability, and that inadequate preparation could result in costly reputational damage and a loss of customer trust.
Those are the key findings of a Pure Storage-sponsored survey in which the University of Technology Sydney carried out interview-based qualitative research among IT practitioners in the Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.
The survey found:
- 100% of those asked believed sovereignty risks that include potential service disruption have forced organisations to reconsider where data is located;
- 92% said geopolitical shifts had increased sovereignty risks;
- 92% believed inadequate sovereignty planning could lead to reputational damage;
- 85% identified loss of customer trust as the key consequence of inaction;
- 78% said they had embraced data strategies that included engaging with multiple service providers; adopting sovereign datacentres (on-premise or in-country), and building enhanced governance requirements into commercial agreements.
The survey commentary talks of a “perfect storm” where service disruption risks, foreign influence and evolving regulations converge to create huge exposure to risk for organisations that could result in revenue loss, regulatory penalties and irreparable damage to stakeholder trust if not addressed.
One IT decision maker talked about how complex data sovereignty can be to unpick, and how it now forms key planks of their organisation’s agreements with customers.
“The Access Group handles sensitive end user data for our customers across the world, from the NHS in the UK to the Tax Department in Australia,” said Rolf Krolke, regional technology director for APAC with The Access Group. “Data sovereignty is an absolutely critical issue for us and our customers. In fact, they ask that it be written into our contracts.”
The concept of data sovereignty centres on the idea that information created, processed, converted and stored in digital form is subject to the laws of the country in which it was generated. But data can travel, too, and when it does, its destination country’s laws on data held there that must be adhered to. That is known as data residency.
Difficulties can arise when the two concepts meet and the laws of one state contradict another, such as with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which requires that data transferred to another jurisdiction is held with adequate safeguards and protections.
For such reasons, organisations often want to know where their data goes, and also might want to keep it in known – often home country – locations.
Such concerns have been heightened in the recent climate of geopolitical instability, as well as the febrile climate that has grown around international cyber crime.
The rise in use of the cloud is core to many of the concerns and the difficulties that arise.
Datacentre locations
Also present as concerns are datacentre locations and the global supply chain, said Patrick Smith, EMEA chief technology officer of Pure Storage, who suggests organisations and states will need to move to – or are already moving towards – building their own sovereign capacity.
This, he said, means physical equipment and in-country datacentre capacity, and that’s not a trivial obstacle to surmount.
“It’s interesting when you think about some of the constrained components that we’ve seen on the global stage,” said Smith. “A great example is Nvidia GPUs [graphics processing units], which require almost a global village to produce them.
“As soon as you start looking at data sovereignty, you’re looking at, ‘How do I build my sovereign capability? Where do I get all the components from?’ Many countries have effectively outsourced datacentres. They’ve put them outside of their own geography.
“With a sovereign capability, you’re talking about having to host those datacentres within your own borders,” he said. “And that suddenly means that you need to have that energy production and water supply to support that datacentre.”
The US Food and Drug Administration today approved a pill version of the blockbuster anti-obesity drug Wegovy. Made by Novo Nordisk, the pill is taken once a day. The company’s original version of Wegovy is a weekly injection. Both drugs contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide.
“This allows patients with obesity who want to lose weight to have a choice between a once weekly injection or a daily tablet,” says Martin Holst Lange, chief scientific officer at Novo Nordisk.
With the soaring popularity of injectable GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies have been racing to make effective pill versions that could be preferable for some patients. These drugs mimic a naturally occurring hormone in the body that acts on the brain and gut to promote a feeling of fullness.
In clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, participants who took the pill achieved an average weight loss of 13.6 percent by 64 weeks. Nearly 30 percent of people lost 20 percent or more of their weight. The study also showed improvements in cardiovascular disease risk and physical activity levels similar to the injectable version.
While pills can sometimes be a more convenient option, patients may not always take them as prescribed, making them less effective. The clinical trial investigators estimated that in an ideal scenario where participants take the pill every day as prescribed, weight loss would be 16.6 percent—which is similar to results seen with injectable Wegovy.
Novo Nordisk first won approval for an oral semaglutide, sold under the brand name Rybelsus, in 2019 to treat type 2 diabetes. That drug has never been approved for obesity and is not as effective for weight loss as newer GLP-1 medications. The Wegovy pill is essentially a higher-dose version of Rybselsus.
“The efficacy for the obesity pill at the end of the day is driven by dose. Higher doses are required to achieve full weight-loss potential for obesity,” Lange says. The Wegovy pill is 25 milligrams while Rybelsus is 14 milligrams.
The most common side effects of oral Wegovy include nausea and vomiting, which are also side effects of the injectable version.
Novo has not disclosed the exact timeline for the drug’s launch, but Lange says it will be available sometime in the first few months of 2026. Production of the medication is already underway at Novo Nordisk’s US manufacturing sites, and the company expects to have enough of the drug to meet US demand.
The first thing to think about is how you’re going to drain the water from the dehumidifier. In the basement, the best thing you can do is to use the dehumidifier’s continuous water drain tube to either the sump pump or a drain. If those options are not available, you might be emptying the tank multiple times a day. The first time I put a dehumidifier in the basement, the tank was filled in three hours’ time. It’s all about the drainage. Also, knowing how to read a label. If you have a 50-pint humdidifier that means the appliance can remove 50 pints of moisture from the air in a 24-hour period; it’s not the internal tank capacity. Also, look for the maximum area coverage. For example, the Honeywell Smart 50 pint can remove 50 pints of water from 4,000 sq ft—the size of a whole house—in 24 hours.
If you, like me, also need a dehumidifier in your city apartment, then consider buying one that’s easy to move around with wheels and a handle. Some of these machines are heavy. Also, a small dehumidifier in the bathroom is a good idea to keep the dampness at bay, especially if you have mold growing on your grout.
Lastly, do not drink the water collected in your dehumidifier tank. That water is not potable. Pour it down the drain. A dehumidifier is not creating distilled water; that’s a different process and appliance.
Over the weekend, the Justice Department released three new data sets comprising files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ had previously released nearly 4,000 documents prior to the Friday midnight deadline required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
As with Friday’s release, the new tranche appears to contain hundreds of photographs, along with various court records pertaining to Epstein and his associates. The first of the additional datasets, Data Set 5, is photos of hard drives and physical folders, as well as chain-of-custody forms. Data Set 6 appears to mostly be grand jury materials from cases out of the Southern District of New York against Epstein and his coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Data Set 7 includes more grand jury materials from those cases, as well as materials from a separate 2007 Florida grand jury.
Data Set 7 also includes an out-of-order transcript between R. Alexander Acosta and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility from 2019. According to the transcript, the OPR was investigating whether attorneys in the Southern District of Florida US Attorney’s Office committed professional misconduct by entering into a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, who was being investigated by state law enforcement on sexual battery charges. Acosta was the head of the office when the agreement was signed.
Leading up to the deadline to release materials, the DOJ made three separate requests to unseal grand jury materials. Those requests were granted earlier this month.
The initial release of the Epstein files was met with protest, particularly by Epstein victims and Democratic lawmakers. “The public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” wrote a group of 19 women who had survived abuse from Epstein and Maxwell in a statement posted on social media. Senator Chuck Schumer said Monday that he would force a vote that would allow the Senate to sue the Trump administration for a full release of the Epstein files.
Along with the release of the new batch of files over the weekend, the Justice Department also removed at least 16 files from its initial offering, including a photograph that depicted Donald Trump. The DOJ later restored that photograph, saying in a statement on X that it had initially been flagged “for potential further action to protect victims.” The post went on to say that “after the review, it was determined there is no evidence that any Epstein victims are depicted in the photograph, and it has been reposted without any alteration or redaction.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in a fact sheet on Sunday that it has “hundreds of thousands of pages of material to release,” claiming that it has more than 200 lawyers reviewing files prior to release.
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