At the height of the COVID crisis, many public authorities and companies multiplied the number of tools they had to use, jumping on the bandwagon of the best-known solutions, such as Zoom, Teams and other GAFAMs. The spread of telecommuting has turned our habits upside down, forcing us to juggle a large number of technologies and procedures. With hindsight, we can see that this "multiplication of applications" makes collaborative work more complex, as information is dispersed. This haste has also created dangerous and even illegal situations. Too much data is stored in clouds that do not comply with regulations, or is vulnerable to ransomware when left on file servers. CEO-Vision, publisher of GoFAST Digital Workplace GED, has joined forces with Dassault Systèmes' 3DS Outscale and OVHcloud Marketplace to offer a unified, secure work environment.
Data Sovereignty and Trusted Cloud: what regulations are needed?
The COVID crisis has at least opened people's eyes to data sovereignty issues, but few realize what is really at stake. For example, decision-makers don't necessarily know that the Federal Trade Administration has placed Zoom under 20-year surveillance in the USA, because of security and confidentiality problems encountered in April 2020. There's a double language, a lack of user education. However, the public sector is enlightening on the subject, trying to engage a sovereign approach, encouraging European products in the face of GAFAM. Europe must now react if it is not to lose the digital battle to the American or Chinese giants.
The extraterritorial "Cloud Act" allows the US government to obtain access to data, even if hosted in Europe, in the context of judicial requests, provided that the supplier is American or has an American activity. Given that 70% of all clouds are subject to the Cloud Act, how can we keep control and avoid abuses?
In France, DINUM (Direction Interministérielle du Numérique) reminds us in its note of September 15, 2021 that Ministries should not use Office365 Cloud offerings, as they do not comply with the Prime Minister's "Cloud au Centre" circular of July 5, 2021. In addition to giving preference to Open Source technologies, this circular stipulates that collaborative, office automation and messaging solutions must be hosted :
- an interdepartmental Cloud offering
- on a SecNumCloud-level commercial Cloud offering, immune to extra-EU regulations.
ANSSI's SecNumCloud certification guides organizations in their choices to guarantee data security and sovereignty. At present, this obligation applies only to government agencies, but there is a risk that it will one day be extended to local authorities and other public bodies.
The headache of teleworking and collaboration...
Collaboration is still all too often synonymous with email attachments and tasks. With hundreds of emails a day and documents flying all over the place, it's vital to change habits if we are to be effective.
The multiplication of tools creates information silos, making collaborative work even more difficult: agents are confronted with too many applications placed side by side, different identifiers, too many emails and attachments, files scattered all over the place and business processes that are almost impossible to follow. Instead of saving time on a day-to-day basis, they end up with duplicate files, out-of-date versions and are completely lost in this mass of information.
Telecommuting means resolving constraints linked to access to tools, documents, tasks and colleagues. But you also have to find a way of "federating collaborative work in this mass of information". Failing to ask the right questions can have major consequences: partial stoppage of activity, errors, agents on the verge of breakdown, wasted time, lack of cohesion...
Meeting the imperatives of sovereignty and efficiency
French alternatives to GAFAM do exist! Among these sovereign solutions, CEO-Vision's GoFAST Digital Workplace and EDM (electronic document management) stands out as an Open Source solution competing with Office365-SharePoint-Teams. According to the publisher, 4 principles must be respected:
- Centralize and secure data: avoid dispersion between a file server, a GAFAM Cloud, your PC, your e-mail, protect yourself effectively against ransomware.
- Opt for a unified "EDM+Collaborative" work environment to process documents from template to electronic signature, rather than a collection of applications: otherwise, agents no longer know where to find or share information.
- Support change: promote best collaborative practices, structure document management and processes.
- Opt for sovereign software hosted in a "Trusted Cloud".
Intended for both the public and private sectors, GoFAST fits perfectly into the "Cloud at the Center" circular: not subject to extraterritorial laws, Open Source with open standards guaranteeing sustainability and reversibility, hosted as dedicated SaaS (having your own platform and knowing where your data is), as SecNumCloud SaaS qualified as a "Trusted Cloud" available on Dassault Systèmes' 3DS Outscale, or OnPremise (in its Datacenter).
We now have a choice, and more and more public authorities are realizing that it is possible to meet both business needs and sovereignty imperatives. GoFAST users include: AIFE (Ministry of Finance), UNEDIC AGS, LNE (Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d'Essais), EMCDDA (European Agency), INSA Lyon, EPA Saint-Etienne, Noisy-le-Grand, Rillieux-la-Pape, Caluire-et-Cuire, CD Haute-Savoie, CD Aude, Région Occitanie, Région Bourgogne-Franche-Comté...