Innovative cloud solutions provider Citrus Consulting is expanding its strategic partnership with NetApp, the intelligent data infrastructure company, with this collaboration marking a significant milestone in driving data sovereignty and integrity within the New Zealand market, reinforcing both companies’ commitment to excellence and ethical data management practices.
NetApp and Citrus Consulting have extended forces, and my video interview below with Matt Swinbourne, NetApp’s CTO for Cloud, and Adrian Hall, Director of Citrus Consulting, explores the strategic partnership and why Indigenous Data Sovereignty, almost other topics, is such an important issue in 2024.
Citrus Consulting is a data management company in that offers comprehensive cloud consulting services for data management solutions and cloud service providers in New Zealand, and across APAC, to help customers develop an effective data strategy.
Citrus seamlessly integrates support for essential identifiers such as NHI Numbers, IRD Numbers, NZ Drivers Licenses, and NZ Passports. Recipient of the prestigious NetApp Data Visionary award in 2020, Citrus Consulting continues to pioneer innovative approaches to data management, with the NetApp relationship with some Citrus executives spanning an impressive 25 years!
Here is our video interview – the article, with a transcript of Matt and Adrian’s comments on Indigenous Data Sovereignty from the interview is below, so please watch, and read on!
Stephen Persoglia, Director of Partners and Strategic Alliances at NetApp hailed the partnership, noting: “NetApp is proud to empower New Zealand businesses with the assurance of data sovereignty and integrity with Citrus Consulting.
“As the volume of data continues to grow exponentially, we must ensure that data remain secure within New Zealand’s jurisdiction, aligning with the nation’s data privacy regulations. Together, we are committed to providing added value to the cloud data management toolkit while respecting the importance of Indigenous Data Sovereignty and supporting the resilience of Aotearoa New Zealand’s critical infrastructure.”
Citrus Consulting’s state-of-the-art data centres not only ensure data sovereignty but also guarantee that all data remains under New Zealand jurisdiction.
Adrian Hall, Director at Citrus Consulting states: “The explosive growth in data is not slowing, along with the rapid pace of tech innovation and maturity of the New Zealand tech ecosystem, customers are looking to companies like Citrus Consulting for added value to their cloud data management toolkit.”
Additionally, government is prioritising building the resilience of Aotearoa New Zealand’s critical infrastructure. Citrus Consulting works with critical infrastructure providers and government agencies, including Todd Energy, First Gas, New Zealand Defence Force, City Rail Link and Wellington International Airport.
NetApp and Citrus Consulting are actively exploring the complexities of Indigenous Data Sovereignty in New Zealand, recognising its significance to the nation’s indigenous communities.
Here is a transcript of the video interview where Adrian, Matt and I discuss the importance of Indigenous Data Sovereignty:
Alex:
There’s also the issue of indigenous data sovereignty, something that presumably is an issue in Australia too. Now, given you are both actively exploring the complexities of indigenous data sovereignty in New Zealand, what does this all entail?
Adrian:
Yes, every country is going to have this issue at some point, you know, whether it’s Māori data, whether it’s Australian Aboriginal data, whether it’s American Indian.
Indigenous data doesn’t mean it’s written in the indigenous language. It could be any language. It’s just who owns the data and where it should be. And so what we’re finding it’s going to be a huge opportunity for all storage vendors, basically, globally, that the data is almost definitely going to have to stay within the borders of that country. So this is this is where we’re working with at the moment to try and work out what the indigenous data is to start with, which is the really difficult bit, and then whether it can be stored here in New Zealand or in the cloud.
Matt Swinbourne:
The foundational principles of indigenous data management is really ensuring that Indigenous peoples have control, ownership and investment in the storage dissemination access of data, not only relating to cultural things, or historical things, but importantly, in the realm of self determination and nation building, in statistical information that’s been generated and making sure that those indigenous groups and communities are invited to participate in the analysis of that statistical data. So there’s a lot of history that builds into this.
There’s a number of frameworks being proposed around the world. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders studies has a code of ethics that is referenced by a lot of groups around the world. The New Zealand Government has their own code of ethics that’s been created. There’s also some metadata principles that are being created for traditional knowledge. So when we think about family data, whether it’s been verified as indigenous data, or not verified, who should it be attributed to into? Is it culturally sensitive? And is it commercial, non-commercial?
So it really does build on all of that digital rights management that we we created in terms of general data management and access control. It builds on that onto another level. And of course, when we think back about that generative AI topic, a lot of this data is available in libraries and research institutions around the world. And there’s an argument that still needs to be had about who should have the right to use that data in a generative AI perspective, because there’s a lot of very powerful cultural and historical traditions that could be very easily violated if these kinds of principles aren’t put into place, and put into place quickly.
Conceivably, we could extend that into audio recordings and look for language markers and things like that as the power of AI and the new general transformers as they start doing really hit their stride, there is no limit to the potential misuse of this data if we get this wrong. But there’s also an incredible opportunity to preserve history, preserve culture, and protect culturally significant items like we’ve never been able to before. So I think it presents a really wonderful opportunity for us in the in the technical industry.
