By: Izza Belle Basubas, Thea Divina
PLDT establishes the first sovereign cloud in the Philippines to ensure the safety of all government data. Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN News.
PLDT, the Philippines leading telecommunications company, launches the first sovereign cloud in the country to ensure all government data stays in the sovereign soil and is secure from foreign access.
On Thursday, Victor Genuino, president and chief executive of ePLDT, said in the Philippine Digital Convention 2023 that the ePLDT Pilipinas Cloud (ePPC) infrastructure will serve as the host of “highly sensitive government data and applications” by storing it in a trusted cloud environment.
“What we are selling is peace of mind,” Victor Genuino affirmed.
Amid the recent data breach targeting the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA), establishment of ePPC will secure data centers to store critical government data including National ID records and confidential personal information of citizens without risk of foreign surveillance, interception, or cyber attacks.
Genuino said, sovereign cloud will provide a secure, flexible, and cost-effective platform to store and process data strictly within the host country’s borders and be subject to local data protection laws and regulations.
Telco giant PLDT designed the sovereign cloud in an air-gap mode, where cloud infrastructure is not connected to the public internet, where all cyberattacks started.
As the Philippine government intensify digitalization in the country, the establishment of ePPC is also expected to benefit all the Filipinos through enhanced deliver of government services as agencies are able to better manage their operations
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy praised PLDT group’s move in launching the Philippines first sovereign cloud infrastructure.
He also expressed optimism as he looked forward to the benefit of ePPC in accelerating digitization and positioning the Philippines as an emerging leader in cloud computing technology.
Government Agencies Suffer Data Breach
On October 3, 2023, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) confirmed its recent hacking incident wherein millions of its members’ personal accounts and information have been affected.
It has been considered the government’s largest data breach since the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) “Comeleak” incident in 2016.
Next to suffer from cyber attack is the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). However, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy declines to confirm said network incident involving PSA while affirming the agency’s investigation of the case.