Europe found many of their online applications disfunctional on Monday (20 October) when there was a major disruption to Amazon's cloud storage — prompting concerns over overreliance on US tech.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud computing platform, which services major online companies like Snapchat, and Zoom.
By late Monday, some 67 services offered by AWS were still impacted by the outage. Platforms affected included Snapchat, Signal and Duolingo.
The problem emerged early Monday morning, with Amazon confirming around 10 AM CET they were working to resolve the issue.
The digital disruption impacted services used in Europe, including with platforms used by the EU institutions.
“Once we have clarification from the company on what led to this outage, we will see if we need to take further measures in terms of the resilience of our own communication networks that we use,” an EU Commission spokesperson said.
The outage had no impact on the European Parliament's internal operations, however, a spokesperson confirmed to EUobserver.
The major outage comes amid discussions over Europe’s own digital sovereignty, which will be part of discussions on the agenda of EU leaders during this week’s European summit in Brussels.
“In the face of geopolitical shifts, rapid technological change, and growing global competition for innovation, talents and investments, it is crucial to advance Europe’s digital transformation, reinforce its sovereignty and strengthen its own open digital ecosystem,” read the draft conclusions, seen by EUobserver, which are the basis for discussions during Thursday’s European Council.
Tech experts believe outages like Monday's shine a spotlight on Europe’s over-reliance on US tech.
“We urgently need diversification in cloud computing,” said Corinne Cath-Speth, from NGO Article19. “The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies”.
Echoing the same message, Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Technology Institute, said: “Europe’s dependency on monopoly cloud companies like Amazon is a security vulnerability and an economic threat we can’t ignore”.
“Today’s outage shows how concentrated power makes the internet fragile and this lack of resilience hits our economies as a result,” said technologist Robin Berjon.
When asked about the impact on the work of the Burssels-exectuive, a commission spokesperson confirmed they were aware of the outage and it did affect their communication — which often takes place via Signal messaging app, also affected by the outage.
“From experience this morning, we were using more emails. We went back to our traditional methods,” a commission spokesperson told the press on Monday.
In 2020, the commission had to adjust their communication methods because, after the institution encouraged workers of the instituion to start using the encrypted messaging app Signal for internal communication.
That followed a scandal related to text messages between president Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer, which raised concerns about transparency and the security of official communications.
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Owen Carpenter-Zehe is a junior reporter from the US at EUobserver, covering European politics.
Owen Carpenter-Zehe is a junior reporter from the US at EUobserver, covering European politics.