Zurich's data mostly with Swiss providers
Most of the data for the canton of Zurich is hoarded in Swiss data centers. However, cloud providers in Germany and the Netherlands are also used in isolated cases. The canton is currently building its own two redundant data centers for sensitive data.
The canton of Zurich is currently building two redundant data centers of its own for sensitive data. Two cantonal councillors and one female cantonal councillor from the FDP, EDU and SVP submitted a request to the Zurich government council in July. Request submitted.
In response to the question of how data from the canton of Zurich is currently stored and processed, the reply states that the majority of data from the canton of Zurich is stored in its own data centers or hoarded via on-premise systems in data centers of private providers with a data location in Switzerland. In isolated cases, public cloud solutions from Europe are also used in the canton of Zurich, as the government council writes.
Two redundant data centers for sensitive data
In response to the question of how Swiss data is secured to prevent access by third-party providers, the government council writes that in this case it is a matter of countries "with an appropriate level of data protection". If this is not the case, "further measures such as data encryption" are usually taken and the corresponding outsourcing of data must be dispensed with.
One question concerned the government council's medium- and long-term plans regarding data storage and processing. Here, the government council was pursuing a "dual strategy" in the long term: With the operation of two data centers, the necessary resources would be provided for data storage and processing, which in particular require data to be stored in the canton's own data centers in accordance with legal requirements. In parallel, cloud providers and cloud solutions would be applied.
Source: SDA/Canton of Zurich
