The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas can exploit developed country “overreaction” to become a leading international jurisdiction for commercial data storage, a top industry specialist adding that its client base in this nation had doubled in the last two years.

Chris Evans, chief executive of Foreshore, a Jersey-headquartered commercial data centre and Internet services provider, told Tribune Business that the “warrantless access” law enforcement agencies in the US, UK and Europe now enjoyed had “undermined the security” of legitimate, commercial electronic data.

This, he suggested, had created an opening for the Bahamas and other small island states to establish themselves as secure locations for the storage of commercially sensitive data, preventing its unwarranted disclosure to third parties.

“Many of the larger economies have implemented, or overreacted in implementing, legislation that verges on encroaching on civil liberties,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business. “The technology to be able to store vast quantities of data is widespread enough, and the law enforcement agencies are able to make use of technology that only national security agencies could use in the past.

“That power has meant that sometimes information is made available” without law enforcement agencies first requiring a warrant from the courts to seize it. Such “warrantless access” in developed nations, Mr Evans added, “has undermined the security of confidential information, especially as governments are not good custodians”.

This was dramatically demonstrated when the child support records of 10 million UK residents, complete with personal financial information, were leaked into the public domain.

With the confidentiality of legitimate data under threat, Mr Evans agreed that the Bahamas had an opportunity to establish itself as a secure ‘offshore’ storage jurisdiction. He warned, though, that such a move needed to be promoted correctly, given the negative stigma the G-20/OECD had succeeded in attaching to so-called ‘offshore financial services’.

“Smaller countries tend to be slower at adopting these types of legislation generally,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business. “I think the Caribbean nations, along with the smaller island states, have taken a more balanced approach to meeting their obligations in preventing crime and terrorism, but at the same time not going overboard in making this information available to too many people.

“Small states do have an opportunity to steer a more pragmatic line between wholesale availability ofg confidential information on one side, and being fully co-operative with the battle against organized crime and terrorism on the other.

“The bigger economies, like the US and the UK, have overreacted and taken it too far in an availability direction, which in turn exposes information to greater risks that it will be accessed by criminal types.”

Foreshore, which originally entered the Caribbean market in 2001 to provide risk mitigation and disaster recovery services, made its first foray into the Bahamas in 2006. It has been making regular visits to this nation, from its Cayman Islands regional base, and giving presentations since 2008-2009.

Polly Pickering, the company’s regional manager, told Tribune Business that Foreshore had built-up a Bahamian client base around 50 strong. Apart from the original financial services institutions and law firms, its clients include insurance companies, construction firms and aviation entities.

“In the last 24 months, there’s been a huge ramp up,” Ms Pickering said of Foreshore’s Bahamian client base. “The growth rate has been exponential. The client growth in the Bahamas has doubled in the last 24 months.

“It’s a real mix. Financial services were the initial clients, and now we’re seeing any business that has concerns over client records, back-up data, availability…….”

Apart from Foreshore’s secure, continuous e-mail services, Ms Pickering said other services demanded by Bahamian companies were off-island servers and digital back-up – redundancy that would serve them well if a major catastrophe, such as a hurricane, hit the Bahamas.

She added that Foreshore worked with Bahamas-based information technology providers in the roll-out of its services, the company itself acting almost as an infrastructure provider.

“We have hundreds of customers throughout the Caribbean, which we have built up over the last 10 years,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business. “We’re positive about the future. A good 50 per cent of the company’s revenues come from the Caribbean, so it’s absolutely a key strategic area for us, and we will continue to invest in this region. Our office in Cayman will become more and more important as we demonstrate a commitment to this region.”