Protected B Cloud

What Protected B Means

In Canada's information security classification system, Protected B covers information that could cause serious injury to individuals or organizations if disclosed — personal health records, tax data, social services files, law enforcement information, financial records. Government departments at federal and provincial levels are required to handle Protected B data within certified environments that meet specific security controls for access, encryption, logging, and physical security.

Certification Without Sovereignty Is Incomplete

Several foreign cloud providers have achieved Protected B certification for their Canadian data centre regions. This means the technical security controls pass audit. But certification does not address the legal sovereignty gap: a Protected B environment operated by an American subsidiary remains subject to American law. The US CLOUD Act allows American courts to compel production of data held by American companies anywhere in the world. Protected B certification protects against hackers. It does not protect against a US subpoena.

The Provincial Push for True Sovereignty

Alberta has led the way by issuing procurement for a Sovereign Compute Environment that goes beyond Protected B certification. Alberta's definition requires that all data, workloads, models, metadata, and administrative functions remain under exclusive Canadian legal and operational control — with no access by personnel subject to foreign law. This is the new standard. Protected B is the floor; sovereignty is the ceiling. The gap between them is where Canadian data is most vulnerable.

Building the Sovereign Layer

Yamoria, founded by Jerald Sibbeston, builds compute environments that meet both the technical requirements of Protected B and the legal requirements of true sovereignty. Canadian-owned hardware, Canadian-operated facilities, Canadian personnel with appropriate clearances, open-source software with no foreign licensing dependencies — sovereignty at every layer of the stack.