How secure is your data? In the aftermath of the NSA spying scandal, more and more people are asking themselves this same question. And rightly so!

The volume of our online data is growing exponentially. Photos on your smartphone, e-mail-traffic, visited websites, or private phone calls, etc... All of this data is registered and stored by your service provider. Information that - if you are not careful - could fall into the wrong hands. Something the revelations about the interception practices of the American National Security Agency and the British intelligence service GCHQ have made abundantly clear. It goes without saying that this data has to be stored somewhere.

Especially now companies and organisations are increasingly trending towards working 'in the cloud'. This means their data is stored on a server they do not own, and over which they have no control. Furthermore, if your data is stored in a 'public' cloud, such as Microsoft, it is stored on shared racks. How safe is that really? Obviously a private cloud, with dedicated racks, is a much more secure solution. Stefan Mortelmans, Business Developer Data Centers at LCL, explains: "More and more companies are opting to keep their data in a private cloud environment, especially within the SME sector. They store their data on a cloud server offered by their service provider, who in turn stores this data in a data centre. Crucial information is therefore rarely placed in public clouds, such as the open platforms of Amazon and Microsoft, because of the very high risk of security breaches."

Another important question, where is your data located? If something goes wrong, then the laws of the country where the data is stored, are applicable. Not a problem if your data is located in Belgium, where the Belgian parliament introduced laws that will protect both you and your data; but if your data is stored abroad, then Belgian legislation will not be of much benefit.

The NSA scandal has been a wake-up call for many Belgian organisations, who are now increasingly questioning the safety of their data. Luckily there are Belgian data centres, such as LCL, that can offer them a reliable solution. The LCL data centres in Belgium offer a double layer of protection. Your service provider and/or IT department will have its own security measures, to which LCL adds its security systems. Plus you are protected by Belgian laws because LCL is a 100% Belgian company. American companies, on the other hand, are obliged to give the American government access to any data upon request. That is something you never have to worry about with LCL!