Question

To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the House of Commons Commission, whether cloud services used by the Parliamentary Digital Service make use of data centres outside of the United Kingdom.

Yes. A small number of cloud services used by the Parliamentary Digital Service make use of data centres outside the United Kingdom.

Parliament’s policy is to host and process its data in the United Kingdom wherever practicable. Where a provider does not offer a United Kingdom location, the European Union is used as the preferred alternative, and only a very small number of services operate outside both. These arrangements are kept under review and services are moved to United Kingdom hosting where suitable options become available. It would not be appropriate to identify individual services or the specific locations at which their data is held, as to do so could prejudice the security of Parliament’s networks and data.