Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what restrictions there are on where G Cloud suppliers should locate their data centres; and what guidance his Department provides to those suppliers on location of their data centres.

G-Cloud suppliers are not restricted on data centre locations. Any off-shoring of Government information must gain permission of the Government Senior Information Risk Owner (G-SIRO) – prior to May 2010 only the permission of the departmental Senior Information Responsible Officer was required. Off-shoring of personal information must be compliant with the Data Protection Act.

A range of guidance on cloud services, including data centre locations, is available for suppliers on GOV.UK and from the Government’s National Technical Authority for Information Assurance (CESG).