Canada mulls ‘top secret’ data clouds as allies move ahead with intelligence-sharing plans

Australia is joining the United States and the United Kingdom in developing top-secret cloud networks to exchange top-secret defense, national security and intelligence data with each other – a concept Canada is only just beginning to consider.

Experts say that unless the gap is closed quickly, Canada’s lack of such digital infrastructure will have a profound impact on new military hardware that the federal government has pledged to purchase, such as F-35 stealth fighters, MQ-9 Reaper- drones and long-range missiles. reach P-8 surveillance aircraft.

The gap also puts Canada at a disadvantage in negotiations to join the high-tech portion of AUKUS, the trilateral defense and technology partnership involving the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The AUKUS countries are also part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – New Zealand and Canada are the other partners. So three of the five countries in Canada’s premier intelligence alliance are now exchanging top secret information in secure cloud-based systems that Canada does not have access to.

While Defense Minister Bill Blair acknowledged the government “has some work to do” on the issue, he stressed it is being taken seriously and said it is critical that Canada continues to preserve and protect its most sensitive data.

“I want autonomy. I want control over our data,” Blair recently told CBC News in an interview.

“I don’t want Canada’s most sensitive data stored in another country. I want Canada to be able to control its own data and know with confidence that it is safe.”

Currently, Blair said, Canada’s classified data is stored on physical servers in this country. To get its own secure cloud network, Canada would have to hire a major foreign tech company like Amazon to build one.

But if Canada still doesn’t have that separate cloud network by the time data-generating weapons systems like the F-35s come into service, the country might have to buy access to one of those tech companies’ own cloud networks — thus reducing Blair’s autonomy undermined. says he wants to protect.

More than four years ago, Australia began taking rapid steps to build its secure cloud infrastructure.

Andrew Shearer, director general of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence (ONI), revealed the existence of the project last December during a fireside chat with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The secret cloud would facilitate the exchange of large amounts of classified data between the Australian, US and British intelligence services, he said.

Australia has since signed a contract worth nearly Cdn $1.9 billion with Amazon Web Services (AWS) – a subsidiary of US tech giant Amazon – to host Australia’s defence, security and intelligence data.

The United Kingdom established its secret cloud in 2021, also with AWS. The Pentagon and the US intelligence community use both AWS and Microsoft for their highly secure cloud system.

Canada didn’t get into the game until last spring, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Ottawa would embark on a government-wide sovereign computing strategy to support domestic development of artificial intelligence.

Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne followed last June by announcing public consultations on how to leverage the $2 billion tied to the strategy.

According to the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) website, the goal of the consultation is to “engage researchers, innovators and companies to identify the best strategies to invest in Canada’s AI future.”

“We know that our data needs in the future will be much greater than ever before [the] capacity [of the government’s servers]Blair said. “And so… I don’t want to have to go to a foreign company, a private company abroad” to access data collected by the Canadian military and security establishment.

But that is exactly what the federal government should do as new military assets, such as the F-35s and new frigates, enter active service.

All these new weapon systems require a secret cloud network to function optimally. Without its own, sovereign cloud network, the Department of National Defense (DND) would be forced to store the data these systems generate on a contract basis – likely with a US technology company subject to US law.

“Cloud technology is actually a critical enabler that allows all the different parts of the military to take in information and then start using it,” said Dave Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

The recent update to Canada’s defense policy refers to the digitalization of the military, but the reference to classified cloud networks is hidden among many other initiatives in the document.

AUKUS took Ottawa by surprise

Several defense experts, including Perry, say the lack of emphasis on sovereign cloud infrastructure will lead to the Five-Eyes alliance becoming more of a “three-eyes” partnership — which will undermine Canada’s push to join the high-tech pillar of the AUKUS safety organization. regulation.

There is always a hint of wounded pride among senior Canadian defense officials whenever AUKUS is mentioned. The exclusion from a meeting of Canada’s oldest, closest allies and intelligence partners dealt a blow to the country’s sometimes delicate sense of its place in the world.

The creation of AUKUS in 2021 caught the Trudeau government off guard, which initially dismissed it as a deal to secure nuclear-powered submarines for Australia. But critics have repeatedly pointed to it as evidence that Canada is no longer taken seriously or seen as a reliable security partner by its friends.

Perry said Australia appears to have been clearer and more determined than Canada.

“Australia looked at the threat and made investments in the kind of capabilities they think are needed and they launched a mechanism to actually deliver and acquire that,” Perry said.

“In a Canadian context, the timeline is lightning fast.”

Daniel Araya, an artificial intelligence expert and senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), said he believes Ottawa’s complacency has caught up — and that negotiations to join AUKUS won’t be a slam dunk -dunk will be.

‘It’s humiliating’

“I don’t think we’re taking it seriously,” Araya said. “The truth is…the [security] The umbrella that the US provides covers us. So in practical terms, it is not critical for Canada to be directly involved in its own secret cloud.

“That said, it is humiliating,” he added. “I think it undermines our credibility and I think it undermines some of our self-confidence.”

The federal government will have to overcome a number of hurdles if it wants to catch up, Araya said, citing the military’s deep-seated reluctance to trust the private sector with top-secret data.

“It’s a very cumbersome bureaucracy,” he said. “There’s a heated debate going on within every major military, but because a lot of this is going to depend on the private sector, I think there is some degree of debate. [internal] resistance.”

On the other hand, he said, there are good reasons to be alarmed about the way big tech companies can hold governments hostage on high-security, high-stakes projects like these.

“The military is known for overspending on products, whether it’s hardware or software. That’s probably going to happen here,” Araya said.

The solution, he said, is for Ottawa to incentivize small domestic AI and cloud-based providers to generate alternatives — something the federal strategy launched earlier this year is supposed to do. But the federal government cannot afford to sit on its hands, he added.

“We have to go a step further,” he said. “I think we need better leadership at the federal level.”