Who needs a backdoor when front door access is required? From Tesla to the U.S. tech giants, there has been a growing focus on whether private sector companies are obliged to turn over data to a foreign government in exchange for market access. This can take the form of source code reviews to unfettered access upon request and increasingly may pose a risk to intellectual property and personal data as digital authoritarian frameworks proliferate.
This comes at a time when significant supply chain disruptions have prompted many in the private sector to reassess their global footprint, with cybersecurity a top priority and motivator when exploring greener pastures elsewhere. Integrating government data access policies must become core to these considerations as corporations reshore and transform their global footprint.
But how do these policies compare from one country to the next? Has the GDPR inspired more progeny or is the Chinese model spreading faster as many contend? To address these questions, this presentation will introduce a new global index of countries based on government-mandated data access requirements. We will discuss the data and factors driving the index, as well as elicit community recommendations for improving the model. With such significant global transformations underway, government-mandated data access warrants greater attention when exploring the full range of global cyber risks.