I would like to try using the Speaker Recognition service offered on the Azure platform in a hobbyist project, though being quite new to the platform I am unsure if I am able to access it. The infomation page states that it is only avalible in the WestUS region and since I am in the UK, does this make me unable to access it?
I have been able to set up a Cognitive Services instance in the westUS region, though I'm not sure if this is refering to the same "region" as is required.
Yes, currently, Speaker Recognition only supports Azure Speech resources created in the westus region. You need to have a resource in westus region to use Speaker Recognition service.
I am looking for "authentication as a service" (fully managed, Google or any other 3rd party) that provides authentication for a web-service on Google Cloud Platform with (user) data stored on servers located in the European Union.
Currently, we use Firebase Authentication with Google as Identity Provider for authentication. After the cancelation of the US-privacy-shield last summer, we formally have to search for something else, as Firebase Authentication is currently an US service only (https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy).
Please only technical advise, as we have discussed the lets-wait-and-see option in depth already.
I am aware that you are looking for technical advise only for another Europe based authentication service, but it maybe worth mentioning that The Privacy Shield frameworks provided a mechanism to comply with data protection requirements when transferring EEA, Swiss, or UK personal data to the United States and onwards. In light of the recent European Court of Justice ruling on data transfers, Firebase has made updates to their terms to add the relevant Standard Contractual Clauses as adopted by the European Commission, which, as per the ruling, can continue to be a valid legal mechanism to transfer data under the GDPR.
I have a Dockerized API service destined to run using Cloud Run. The service is backed by Firestore. It's a startup project aimed at English speaking customers most likely US and UK.
In the follow article (https://cloud.google.com/solutions/best-practices-compute-engine-region-selection) it says "For a global user base, deploy in a region in the US".
Hosting the API Service and Firestore in the same region seems to make sense. In the article it says "Estimate 1 ms of round-trip latency for every 100 km traveled". Based on that, I would pick the East side of the US because that's nearer on the map to the UK. I assume the undersea cables terminate at the coast. However, maybe the UK is linked directly to another part of the US. What particular region within the US that would be most suitable and how do you arrive at this? (does it even matter?)
I'm not sure about this, i think i can use it for a app that needs hipaa compliance, because the nginx container is running on GKE or GCE and this services are hipaa compliance. Or is it not compliant?
Product Manager here.
Endpoints is not yet on Google's official list of HIPAA compliant products (available here).
We not believe it is non-compliant, but it has not yet gone through the certification process (and we have a few products ahead of it in the queue). I'd love to bump it up in the queue; feel free to email me (ciruli at google dot com) and I will let the certification team know about the request. I can't promise a schedule or timeframe, but customer input certainly helps.
I am now developing a social application. But recently I noticed that Firebase is blocked in China. So I want to make sure whether firebase can be used in China?
* EDIT 24 January 2020 *
Some of the information here might be out of date.
Firebase has a China service at https://firebase.google.cn/ which is not blocked in the PRC. (Thanks to #c-an for bringing this up.)
That said, *.google.com and *.googleapis.com are still blocked in China. I'll change/update this as I get more information.
Original Answer
For now Firebase is blocked and can't be used in China, along with other Google services, because the PRC has blocked all URIs with *.google.com and *.googleapis.com.
This also means, for example, that the Play app store can't be accessed from China. If you don't know what's going on between Google and the PRC, here's a primer.
Also, according to Chinese law, user data of Chinese citizens must be stored inside of the PRC. You might be able to get away with only addressing this once you have a significant number of users, but the trend has been for the CCP to crack down more and more on foreign information, even busting VPNs and declaring them illegal despite complaints of academics who say that they need, you know, real information.
As we're now in the run-up to the 19th Party Congress this autumn, we can expect the situation to get worse before it gets better. Maybe 2018 will leave room for relaxation?
For now, very sadly, forget anything Google in China, and be prepared to store user data of PRC citizens on servers located inside the Great Firewall. Also be prepared for seemingly random degradations of your service within China, or to be blocked altogether, along with these other blocked services.
Update 2017-11-23: The 19th Party Congress has come and gone and, if anything, Google services look less likely than ever to become available in China. The great firewall is likely to continue to be strengthened as the Chinese Communist Party extends its role into corporations, and foreign firms are generally disadvantaged.
Update 2018-08-05: Google plans to open a censored version of its search in China, according to leaked documents. It seems reasonable to assume that if a censored Google Search becomes available in the PRC, then Firebase and other Google Cloud products may as well. The censored search plan, code-named Dragonfly, has reportedly been in the works since December 2017, possibly a result of meetings that month between Google CEO Sundar Pichai and an unnamed top Chinese official when they met at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China, where PRC General Secretary and President Xi Jinping gave a speech.
Update 2018-12-23: It appears that Google's Project Dragonfly is now on hold if not outright abandoned. This implies that the outlook for Firebase in China has worsened.
You can build your own Rest API server outside of China, and make the server talks to Firebase rest api endpoints of Realtime db or Authentication, https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/rest/database. So you web app talks to your rest api server (accessible from China), and your rest api server talks to Firebase.
The answer is NO :
Using a huge part of Firebase services, I contacted the support, this is the answer :
I'm glad you are considering Firebase for your project. However, in
accordance with current U.S. policies, it is not possible to use
Firebase from within certain countries. For more information about
these restrictions, please refer to the U.S. Department of the
Treasury website. The current list is of blocked countries is listed
here. If you have end-users located within China, it's quite difficult
to access Firebase there since the use of Firebase requires Google
Play Services, which most of the devices in China don't have. We
understand that access to our products has been problematic from
within mainland China. We believe it may have been caused by
networking conditions in China, rather than Google's own services.
Since access to services is determined by the respective country's
government and they don't report to Google, the Transparency Report is
the most authoritative it can be.
I just tested and I am able to access my realtime database hosted on the Singapore region in China mainland. No need to modify anything. Whatever works overseas, works in China. Tested in Beijing.
Facing the same problem, if you are in china, install Astrill VPN and change from openweb to StealthVPN, connect to a server like USA for china one and login to firebase. It will work successfully.