DTA certifies three more companies to store federal government data

Three additional companies have been certified to store government data, having been approved under the hosting certification framework by the Commonwealth’s Digital Transformation Agency.

Equinix, Fujitsu and NextDC received the certification last week, following the initial certification of Canberra Data Centres, Macquarie Telecom and Australian Data Centre by the Digital Transformation Agency in June.

According to the agency, “The Framework will assist agencies to mitigate against supply chain and data centre ownership risks, and enable them to identify and source appropriate hosting and related services.

“The Framework will continue to be iterated to ensure the government’s commitment to digital security can be met, and so Australians can have trust in government systems and the information they hold.”

According to a release by the Digital Transformation Agency, the following centres have been certified:

Australian Data Centres – Certified Strategic;
Canberra Data Centres (H1, H2, H3, H4, F1, F2, EC1, EC2 and EC3) – Certified Strategic;
Equinix Australia (CA1, SY3, SY4, SY5, SY6, SY7, PE2 and ME4) – Certified Strategic;
Fujitsu Australia (Western Sydney and Homebush) – Certified Strategic;
Macquarie Telecom (IC4 and IC5) – Certified Strategic; and
NEXTDC (Perth 1 and 2, Sydney 1 and 2, Melbourne 1 and 2, Brisbane 1 and 2, and Canberra 1) – Certified Strategic.

The revelation that government data would have to be stored in certified centres followed a tumultuous period for Australia and allied Western nations who have shouldered several large scale cyber operations over recent months.

According to Andrew Mitchell writing in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist, “The government’s move follows concerns about the acute data challenges confronting the Australian public sector, including data sovereignty, supply-chain vulnerabilities and cyber security threats.

"The challenge once faced by Australian governments was completing their digital transformations; now, it’s about figuring out how to adequately protect government systems that are hosted in the cloud."