Snowflake on GCP Achieves Australian Security Clearance

Snowflake's data platform on Google Cloud has achieved 'Protected' level IRAP assessment, enabling its use for sensitive Australian government workloads.

Snowflake has announced the successful completion of an InfoSec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment for its platform running on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the Melbourne region. This independent evaluation confirms that Snowflake's security controls and processes meet the stringent requirements specified by the Australian Signals Directorate for the 'Protected' security classification. This milestone is a critical step in the company's efforts to serve the Australian public sector, demonstrating its commitment to adhering to local data security and sovereignty standards. The assessment covers the entire data platform, ensuring that government and regulated customers can leverage its capabilities while remaining compliant with national cybersecurity frameworks.

The 'Protected' level certification is significant because it unlocks the use of Snowflake on GCP for a wide range of sensitive government workloads. Australian federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as organizations in highly regulated sectors like finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, can now adopt the platform for handling data classified up to the Protected level. This development provides these organizations with a powerful, scalable, and now officially vetted cloud data platform. For technology and security leaders, this simplifies procurement and risk assessment processes, as the IRAP assessment provides a trusted third-party validation of Snowflake's security posture, reducing the compliance burden for individual agencies.

The IRAP 'Protected' assessment allows Australian government agencies and regulated industries to use Snowflake on GCP for sensitive data, removing a major compliance barrier and strengthening its position in the APAC cloud market for secure data workloads.

This certification opens up the lucrative Australian public sector and regulated industry markets for Snowflake on GCP. It simplifies the sales cycle and reduces perceived risk for customers handling sensitive data, providing a competitive advantage over platforms without this level of local compliance.