Finland to fund new undersea cable to boost cloud business
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Finland to fund new undersea cable to boost cloud business

The Finnish government has announced plans to fund a new submarine cable connecting Finland and Germany, bypassing Sweden.

The move breaks the country’s reliance on Sweden for international data transmissions, following revelations that Sweden’s agency responsible for electronic surveillance helped supply information to the NSA.

Finland is aiming to become a “safe harbour of information”, where companies can safely place their critical data, according to Krista Kiuru, Finland's minister of education and communications.

Expected to launch in 2015, the new cable is an effort to attract cloud business activity and data centres.

The move is not the first signal that European countries will start clamping down on NSA data interceptions.

In February this year, German chancellor Angela Merkel called for a Europe-only communications network in a bid to improve data protection.

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