Europe goes introvert as fear turns global

If you read Evertiq this Friday, you might have come across an article saying that the U.S and South Korea are re-routing traffic past Huawei equipment; the fear being that someone else might be listening in. In what seems increasingly like an information cold war, where no one trusts no one, Europe could follow suit and try to avoid the prying eyes (or rather ears) of America. According to Reuters, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in talks with French colleague President Francois Hollande. The idea is to build a European network for communications, thus eliminating the necessity for data having to pass through the Unites States. This follows in the trails of the NSA-surveillance scandal that was revealed last year. Germany, having a complicated past when it comes to being monitored (with the East German Stasi being just a generation away), did not look too kindly upon the supposed surveillance. Since then, the German government has tried (unsuccessfully) to ink a no-spy agreement with the U.S. Merkel is cited in the Reuters article in saying that Europe has to do more to protect the data flowing through the various networks. "Above all, we'll talk about European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn't have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic. Rather, one could build up a communication network inside Europe”.