UK intelligence agencies have entrusted classified data to Amazonlink cloud computing arm AWS in a deallink to vastly speed up theirespionage capabilities, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The secret contract was signed this year and experts estimate its value at£500 million ($690 million) to £1 billion, the newspaper said, citingpeople familiar with the discussions.
It was said to be spearheaded by Britain’s cybersecurity agency GCHQ, whichhad wanted to find a UK link cloud providerbut decided that none had the requisite capability as Amazonlink Web Services.
The arrangement reportedly covers MI5, the UKlink domestic security service, and MI6, itsforeign arm, as well as other government branches.
Amazon link itself will not have access tothe data, according to the report.
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It will allow UK link intelligence “to getinformation from huge amounts of data in minutes, rather than in weeks andmonths”, Ciaran Martin, formerly head of GCHQ’s National Cyber SecurityCentre, told the FT.
There was no comment from Amazon link,GCHQ or the UK link government.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) struck a cloud datalink deallink with AWS in 2013 and last year expandedthe contract to allow bids from Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle.
