AWS S3. Azure Blob. Google Cloud Storage. They’ve become the default home for enterprise data worldwide, the systems everyone relies on to store files, backups, and entire business workloads.
But here’s the uncomfortable question: When your data is sitting at rest in the cloud, who actually controls it, you or your hyperscaler?
The major clouds encrypt your data at rest and that sounds reassuring. But in most cases, they hold the keys. So if a lawful access request or national-security inquiry comes in, the provider can decrypt and hand over your data.
Around the world, governments are expanding their data-access and surveillance authorities, often in the name of national security, law enforcement, or digital sovereignty. These laws increasingly apply beyond borders, allowing authorities to compel disclosure of data held by companies under their jurisdiction — even when that data resides elsewhere.
Examples include the U.S. CLOUD Act, the EU’s e-Evidence Regulation (2023), India’s Information Technology Act, and the UK Investigatory Powers Act - all of which enable lawful data access from service providers under certain conditions, regardless of where the information is physically stored.
This means that when you store data with a hyperscaler operating across multiple regions, your information can be subject to overlapping or conflicting legal regimes. Sovereignty and compliance are no longer determined solely by where the data physically sits, but also by which nation’s laws govern the provider that stores it.
For global enterprises, that creates a complex and often unpredictable risk landscape. A file stored “in-region” may still fall under foreign jurisdictional reach, depending on the ownership structure or operational control of the cloud provider.
This is where data sovereignty becomes more than a compliance checkbox. For organizations in EMEA, APAC, and the Americas alike, emerging privacy and localization frameworks from GDPR to regional data protection laws - emphasize that sensitive data should remain under the control of its rightful owner, not a third party governed by another nation’s rules.
Many regulators now warn that storing unencrypted, accessible data with hyperscale providers can raise sovereignty concerns even if that data never crosses borders. And the same challenge applies to multinational enterprises managing cross-border subsidiaries: data created under one legal framework often ends up stored under another.
In other words, even if you operate locally, your cloud provider’s obligations may not be local at all.
The rise of AI infrastructure has added another layer of complexity. Hyperscalers are training and deploying massive AI models on the same environments that host enterprise workloads, sometimes in collaboration with public-sector or defense programs. When that’s the case, it’s worth asking: whose interests take priority when access to data is requested?
Encryption at rest is not the same as data control. If your provider holds the keys, or if your data is governed by their jurisdiction, then “at rest” may only be an illusion of security. True sovereignty means you decide who can access your data - and no one else can override that decision.
ShardSecure helps enterprises regain control before their data ever touches the cloud. Our Microshard™ technology shreds, encrypts, and distributes files across multiple storage locations, rendering them unintelligible without reassembly through your own keys and policies.
Even if a cloud provider were compelled to hand over your data, all they’d have are meaningless fragments - not files, not content, not compliance risk.
You can keep using AWS S3, Azure Blob, and Google Cloud, but on your terms, with your sovereignty intact.
Hyperscalers deliver incredible technology. But they’re also bound by complex and sometimes conflicting obligations that may not align with your privacy requirements or regulatory boundaries.
Data at rest is not automatically data protected. Data in the cloud is not automatically sovereign.
In an AI-driven world where power and data are intertwined, control isn’t something you inherit from your provider, it’s something you design into your architecture, before the data ever leaves your hands.