--- title: The Dark Side of IT: How US-EAST-1 Took Europe Offline... description: An AWS US-EAST-1 outage in October 2025 took down European digital services despite companies believing their infrastructure was EU-only. The incident exposed... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-dark-side-of-it-how-us-east-1-took-europe-offline-and-why-gdpr-is-in-the-crosshairs-my7xpu9ug twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Dark Side of IT: How US-EAST-1 Took Europe Offline and Why GDPR is in the Crosshairs | daily.dev og:description: An AWS US-EAST-1 outage in October 2025 took down European digital services despite companies believing their infrastructure was EU-only. The incident exposed... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-dark-side-of-it-how-us-east-1-took-europe-offline-and-why-gdpr-is-in-the-crosshairs-my7xpu9ug og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/MY7xpU9ug.png og:image:alt: The Dark Side of IT: How US-EAST-1 Took Europe Offline and Why GDPR is in the Crosshairs og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Dark Side of IT: How US-EAST-1 Took Europe Offline and Why GDPR is in the Crosshairs **[Jakarta EE](https://daily.dev/sources/jakartaee)** · 12 min read · 62 upvotes · 7 comments ## Summary An AWS US-EAST-1 outage in October 2025 took down European digital services despite companies believing their infrastructure was EU-only. The incident exposed hidden architectural dependencies where critical services like IAM, authentication, and control planes route through Virginia data centers. European banks, healthcare providers, and government agencies experienced severe disruptions. The analysis examines GDPR compliance failures, Schrems II implications, and how cross-border data flows occur without user notification. CIOs are advised to map control-plane dependencies, review AWS contracts for regional sovereignty gaps, and prepare for regulatory scrutiny as European data protection authorities investigate cloud provider compliance. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@surajshetty** · 8 upvotes > Love how companies spent millions on EU compliance, only to discover their control plane took a casual holiday across the Atlantic. **@fabianletsch** · 4 upvotes > How is it so hard to provide a service where data actually stays in europe? **@qwertydiy** · 0 upvotes > Yes, our actions now have real world consequences. Keep that in mind when you commit. **@kayraze** · 0 upvotes > Woah thats crazy ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Europe wants to end its dangerous reliance on US internet technology](https://daily.dev/posts/europe-wants-to-end-its-dangerous-reliance-on-us-internet-technology-bxej5byjw) · Hacker News · 25 upvotes · 1 comments - [Europe’s cloud dependency is a political risk, not just a technical one](https://daily.dev/posts/europe-s-cloud-dependency-is-a-political-risk-not-just-a-technical-one-zrmz8otqu) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as sovereignty fears mount](https://daily.dev/posts/aws-flips-switch-on-euro-cloud-as-sovereignty-fears-mount-4ixvzmp31) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [An EU breakup with US cloud providers](https://daily.dev/posts/an-eu-breakup-with-us-cloud-providers-ne9wvt6bu) · InfoWorld · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud), [#aws](https://daily.dev/tags/aws), [#devops](https://daily.dev/tags/devops), [#gdpr](https://daily.dev/tags/gdpr) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-dark-side-of-it-how-us-east-1-took-europe-offline-and-why-gdpr-is-in-the-crosshairs-my7xpu9ug) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Dark Side of IT: How US-EAST-1 Took Europe Offline and Why GDPR is in the Crosshairs","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-dark-side-of-it-how-us-east-1-took-europe-offline-and-why-gdpr-is-in-the-crosshairs-my7xpu9ug","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-dark-side-of-it-how-us-east-1-took-europe-offline-and-why-gdpr-is-in-the-crosshairs-my7xpu9ug"},"datePublished":"2025-10-24T09:56:41.926Z","dateModified":"2025-10-24T09:57:08.066Z","description":"An AWS US-EAST-1 outage in October 2025 took down European digital services despite companies believing their infrastructure was EU-only. 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Keep that in mind when you commit.","datePublished":"2025-11-04T17:25:32.174Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MY7xpU9ug#c-QkLr57ru2","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Rene Yibowei","url":"https://daily.dev/qwertydiy","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--QlvtioAW--/f_auto/v1746524446/avatars/avatar_aTUl3chxFyPngKtboGisL"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Woah thats crazy","datePublished":"2025-11-15T09:37:39.645Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MY7xpU9ug#c-5Fy3dxoEC","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Kayde","url":"https://daily.dev/kayraze","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/107134456?v=4"}}]} ```