Finnish cybersecurity expert Petteri Järvinen told Yle he finds it odd that while Europe is strengthening its defence capabilities, it has left its information systems at the mercy of American companies.
According to him, that's not a good approach.
"If we in Europe always opt for the cheapest IT solution, we'll lose this game. We need to develop our skills and services and be prepared to pay for them," Järvinen said.
Just a year ago, things looked different. Three major agencies announced plans to move Finnish data to American cloud services.
In November, Yle reported that Kela was transferring health data to American data centres, including information on therapy reimbursements and parental leave.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice is moving Finland's election data from domestic provider Tieto to Amazon's cloud service.
Residents' tax data will also be moved to Microsoft's Azure cloud. These reforms are scheduled to take effect by 2027.
"A year or two ago, the notion was that there was no risk. In the United States, the position is that if information is important for national security or foreign policy, corporate agreements don't matter," Järvinen explained, referring to the so-called Cloud Act.
That law obliges American technology companies to hand over any data in their possession at the request of authorities, regardless of where in the world the data centre is located.
In Finland, people may be waking up to the fact that American companies control the channels through which they communicate and the tools they use, from Gmail, WhatsApp, Meets and Teams to Facebook and X.
At the same time, Järvinen said he sees a bigger problem in Europe's failure to develop its own cloud services. In Germany, alternatives to Microsoft have been trying to gain a foothold in municipal services for 25 years, and Denmark has embarked on a similar path.
Dependence on American technology could prove costly, as the companies can significantly raise prices.
"Microsoft has announced price increases of 10 to 20 percent this year," he noted.
