Box Gets UK Government Approval

Government departments will be able to use Box to share content and collaborate after the cloud platform was approved by the Government Digital Service (GDS).

The digital division of the British government says Box can be used to share information at an ‘official’ level both internally and externally and hopes the service will improve remote working on mobile devices.

Box GDS approval

The service was approved following “rigorous assessments focused on security and compliance” by the Cabinet Office’s Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) and was selected because of its security credentials and ease of use.

Box is already available to public sector organisations through the G-Cloud and last week was approved by the US Department of Justice.

“Technology has advanced dramatically and new ways of working can mean legacy IT solutions are not always suitable for today’s government, which often needs to manage critical content easily and securely from anywhere and on any device,” said David Quantrell, Box’s general manager for EMEA. “The GDS is a pioneer in deploying innovative technology and as it expands its collaboration portfolio it is encouraging wider cross-government cooperation.”

Box has been keen to adapt its platform for regulated industries in recent times, most notably with the launch of Enterprise Key Management (EKM) for companies that want to manage their own encryption keys.

CEO Aaron Levie has said security would continue to be a priority for the company and that it would look to acquire other firms that could help it safeguard its platform.

“You’re going to see a huge push in security,” he said at an event in London last month. “That’s an area we will be inquisitive if there are interesting assets or teams.”

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