
Disruption in medical and police work in the UK and impact in Norway... European politicians: “Digital sovereignty must be restored”
While the public sector and medical services in various European countries have been disrupted due to Microsoft's large-scale service failure, voices are growing to reduce excessive technological dependence on American big tech companies and strengthen Europe's digital sovereignty.
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Microsoft's large-scale service failure caused disruption to government and public sector operations in some European countries.
(London = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Ji-yeon = As the large-scale service failure of the U.S. big tech Microsoft (MS) has disrupted government and public sector work in some European countries, voices calling for less dependence on U.S. big tech technology are growing.
According to AP and Reuters on the 14th (local time), the MS disorder for two days caused disruption in medical services such as prescriptions and issuance of medical certificates by the British National Health Service (NHS) and online crime reporting by the London Metropolitan Police.
In Manchester, the trial was halted. Judge Maurice Greene sent the jury home, saying it showed the dangers of the court's reliance on technology.
The Norwegian government said several ministries were affected, including without access to email.
Politico's European edition reported that the European Commission and the EU summit had only a 'very limited' impact and that there were no problems with overall operations, but that voices are being raised again that a 'detox' is being raised away from the behavior of overly relying on technology on a small number of American big techs.
Aura Sala, a Finnish member of the European Parliament, issued a statement calling for independence from American technology in the wake of the Microsoft incident, saying, "We are outsourcing too much of our digital infrastructure to actors outside the EU. Government contracts in particular should support European technology."
Chi Onura, chairman of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, a member of Britain's ruling Labor Party, said: "This shows the lack of resilience of Britain's digital infrastructure and the risks this dependence poses for our security, economy and public services."
Victoria Collins, technology spokeswoman for Britain's third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats, also said, "We urgently need a response to break our dependence on a small number of companies."
Even in Germany, experts continue to point out that the use of MS is high in government agencies, schools, and companies.
A spokesman for Germany's Digital Ministry said there had been no major disruptions at the government level, but that the industry as a whole had been affected. "This shows the importance of diversification and we are working on it."
Johannes Schetzl, a lawmaker from Germany's coalition partner party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), said this is an issue that raises questions about public procurement and pointed out, "Digital sovereignty must be judged by whether our system can continue to operate when there are such obstacles."
EU leaders discussed artificial intelligence (AI) issues with European technology experts at an informal summit held in Dublin, Ireland on the 13th. Although the Microsoft incident was not directly mentioned, the discussion focused on technological sovereignty.
Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, a leading French AI company, who attended the event, said, "Only 20% of European digital services operate on European infrastructure," and urged that the money spent on foreign technologies, such as those from the United States and China, be spent on "infrastructure we can control, European research and development (R&D)."
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