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Data acquired and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and regions (information centers) in the Middle East and North Africa exposed that the region's countries rely greatly on American business for cloud services. The data shows the existence of around 31 American centers, the majority of them in Gulf countries, while the number of centers owned by Chinese companies reached about 7.

In the Gulf nations, more than 53% of the cloud infrastructure tracked there is American. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a couple of years, cloud service centers have actually moved from a "technical alternative" for decreasing server costs into crucial infrastructure for the state and the economy: e-government portals, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of huge information, expert system, and more. The current Iran war (2026) revealed a brand-new dimension: the cloud itself can be directly and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes harmed Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, triggering interruptions and service failures.

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But the significance of American and foreign companies does not stop at technical competitors or service quality; it reaches digital sovereignty and questions of control over information for these nations and their numerous sensitive sectors. American companies are subject to U.S. laws controling lawful access to information, such as the CLOUD Act, raising questions about the limits of judicial ask for information even when it is saved outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Section 2713 clearly obliges interactions and computing service companies to maintain and divulge subscriber data within their "belongings, custody, or control, despite whether it lies within or outside the United States" verifying the point above. (Click an image to view it full size.) This reliance likewise converges with the context of cross-border intelligence event under frameworks such as FISA Section 702, as presented by U.S

At the exact same time, specialists gotten in touch with by "Arabi Post" alert of the risks of concentrating contracts with American cloud company, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security. In between concerns over sovereignty and the market's requirement for ready-made facilities, the value of information localization policies and the limitations of cross-border data streams is growing, as gone over in international reports such as those by the OECD.

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residents or locals who interact with individuals or organizations in those countries where information centers run by American companies keep the information of those countries and their citizens. To comprehend the scope of this threat, it is needed to first take a look at U.S. federal laws such as FISA Area 702 and the CLOUD Act, which governs U.S.

Although the CLOUD Act grants Washington broad authority to gain access to information saved in information centersthe large-scale infrastructure used by companies to shop and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be required to inform the government of the nation worried that there is a legal basis engaging access to that information.

The U.S. federal government might also punish or target any U.S. person who engages in financial deals with that country or sends out cash transfers to people there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a conflict were to occur between that country and Washington, the United States could suspend its information storage services for that country and justify doing so.

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This would impact all sectors, including financial and banking services. In the context of the security threats linked to nations' reliance on American information centers, another point also emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad considers the most crucial and most harmful: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool referred to as "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security companies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the ability to force major innovation companies to turn over delicate information related to people or nations. Washington could, for instance, force Amazon to open data records belonging to users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or elsewhere, while "enforcing a stringent nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation business from notifying the Bahraini government or the targeted individuals that this access has actually occurred.