The trade union, the Norsk Tjenestemannslag (NTL) and SV are asking the government to speed up work on a state-owned alternative to foreign data storage services.
They believe the government has procrastinated for several years to create a state-owned and operated cloud service, after it was decided in 2021 to put such a service in place.
Just over two years ago, it became known that the government will purchase the services from a commercial supplier, despite advice from the National Security Authority to create a state-owned and operated cloud service, the three organizations write in an email to NTB. They believe that the decision from November 2023 must be changed.
– Dependence on American IT systems in the public sector entails a serious and unsustainable risk for Norwegian sovereignty, legal certainty and preparedness, the proposal states.
A national exit strategy for the phasing out of large international commercial IT platforms is among the measures SV is asking the government to put in place.
Say no to state-owned cloud
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The National Cloud project, which went through an extensive investigation in 2022 and 2023, recommended that Norway develop both a government-operated and owned cloud, and a commercial cloud. The government thought that was excessive.
They did not want a state-owned and operated cloud, with an additional cost of over six billion kroner. In autumn 2023, NSM was commissioned to start the preliminary project, based on commercial solutions.
Since then, it has been relatively quiet from the project, to criticism from both the opposition and the ekomsecuritätsvågget. In the state budget 2026, money was nevertheless set aside for a preliminary project.
Want a rematch
SV put forward a representative proposal on Wednesday to speed up the work on a national cloud service and ensure that it is state-owned and operated
– There should be agreement that something as fundamental as public data and information should not be left to commercial companies, especially not when we see how technology giants try to influence people, elections and democratic processes for their own gain, says SV leader Kirsti Bergstø and adds that the question “is fundamentally about security and infrastructure”.
NTL leader Kjersti Barsok says the public sector through its systems today is very dependent on foreign actors.
– In the security policy situation we are in now, it is extra important to secure our digital sovereignty through a self-operated government cloud service, she says.
Here is the proposal
1. The Storting asks the government to establish digital sovereignty as an overarching goal in Norway’s digitalisation strategy.
2. The Storting asks the government to ensure the creation of a national cloud service that is owned and operated by the public sector for the storage of data, and as a public work tool.
3. The Storting asks the government to develop a licensing scheme for the collection, use and storage of both public data and personal data for commercial actors. Such a licensing arrangement must
set requirements for what data can be used, for what types of purposes, where and how it is stored, and whether and how it can be shared with various third parties.
4. The Storting asks the government to prepare a national exit strategy for the phasing out of large international commercial IT platforms, such as Microsoft 365, in the state administration and in businesses with critical societal functions, as the Danish authorities are doing, with the aim of transitioning to new systems continuously during 2026.
5. The Storting asks the government to explain how they will better follow up the GDPR and ensure that sensitive and socially critical information about citizens will only be processed in solutions that are under Norwegian or European jurisdiction.
6. The Storting asks the government to reduce supplier lock-in by drawing up rules for public procurement that use open standards, open source code with universal design and enable
operability in the public sector.
7. The Storting asks the government to strengthen and further develop inter-municipal cooperation and shared tasks that develop digital solutions for the public sector, based on open source codes and standards.
8. The Storting asks the government to take the necessary steps to cooperate more closely with Nordic and European countries on joint digital solutions and preparedness, where open source codes and digital sovereignty over digital infrastructure are leading the cooperation.
Source: SV
May cause delays
As the March order in the preliminary project for Nasjonal sky was to use commercial solutions, a new decision on state-owned cloud will probably bring major changes to the project and may lead to further delays.
At the same time, the geopolitical situation in the past year has given rise to more debate about digital independence. NSM is also ready in the councils
– It is our recommendation that you get greater national control, national sovereignty, and that we develop a national cloud solution for that. It is also about looking for alternatives in Europe, and whether there are opportunities to build solutions with cooperating countries in addition to the Americans, or to use solutions that these countries have. I don’t have a better solution than that, said NSM director Arne Christian Haugstøyl to Digi earlier in February.
He talked about what he calls concentration risk knows that so many people use a few or one US cloud service from the scene when he presented the National Security Agency’s risk assessment for 2026,
– Beyond that, what do you think is the solution for businesses that find they cannot afford or have enough expertise to do something about their dependencies on American cloud services?
– There is a reason why people lean so heavily on one or a few rinsing solutions. It’s a bit about the lack of good alternatives, so we have to be honest, replied Haugstøyl.
– It is our recommendation that you get greater national control, national sovereignty, and that we develop a national cloud solution for that. It is also about looking for alternatives in Europe, and whether there are opportunities to build solutions with cooperating countries in addition to the Americans, or to use solutions that these countries have. I don’t have any better solution than that.
– What is the status of National cloud now?
– It is a project that is underway, where some funds have come in to look at this. But I don’t currently have such a precise status of where the work stands. But this is the government’s focus, and we have shares in that work on the security side, replied Haugstøyl.
Debate
Europe is building digital sovereignty – Norway must contribute
date:2026-02-11 23:21:00