The outage has caused widespread problems across the UK today, Tuesday, October 20
A warning has been issued over Brits relying on Google Cloud after a major outage today affected banks, estate agents, Royal Mail and even the courts. Google is facing an issue with multiple services.
The internet giant says the problem – which began on Monday evening – is causing Cloud services to experience errors and intermittent network failures. “Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue,” Google said. “We apologise to all who are affected by the disruption.”
The video system used by courts across England and Wales went down on Tuesday in a move believed to be linked to the outage. The Cloud Video Platform (CVP), used by lawyers, defendants and others, has not been working this morning. Remote court hearings have been affected, with concerns many will be delayed or not go ahead.
The outage has affected firms including online bank Revolut, delivery service DPD and Royal Mail. Revolut digital bank customers have also been hit by disruption to services after the outage.
The fintech, which has millions of customers in the UK, has raised issues affecting services such as card payments, transfers, cash withdrawals and signing into accounts. Now a major private network service used by internet customers across the globe has issued a warning.
Marijus Briedis, Chief Technology Officer at NordVPN, said after the outage: “When a cloud outage leaves people unable to make payments or access everyday services, it exposes how much we depend on infrastructure we never see. As Google is one of the world’s biggest technology companies, disruption to its cloud services can also affect businesses whose customers may have no idea they depend on Google at all.
“For everyday Google users, this dependence can mean several services they rely on suddenly being unavailable at the same time. Someone unable to pay through one banking app may find their alternative is affected too. Keeping a second payment option can help, although using a different bank does not guarantee it relies on different technology.
“Banks, retailers and delivery companies may look like separate businesses, but behind the scenes many rely on the same handful of technology providers. A problem at one supplier can quickly spread beyond its own customers.
“For businesses, the lesson is not that the cloud is unreliable, but that using a major provider does not remove the responsibility to prepare for disruption. Critical services need tested arrangements to switch to another system when something goes wrong.
“A backup is only useful if it can operate independently of whatever has failed. Businesses need to check whether their main service and their fallback rely on the same underlying systems, and test how quickly they can switch between them. Having copies of your data does not, on its own, mean customers can carry on making payments or accessing their accounts.”
Revolut customers affected by Google Cloud outage
More than 1,500 people reported problems with Revolut earlier on Tuesday morning, according to to the Downdetector platform. A spokesperson said: “We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services. We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe.
“We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused.” Hundreds of Lloyds Bank and HSBC users were also reporting issues to Downdetector, as well as platforms like Royal Mail, DPD and Rightmove.
Budgeting app Emma told customers it was down because of the Google Cloud outage. The company posted on X: “Emma is currently down due to a Google Cloud outage affecting services in London since 7am. This is a technical outage, not a security issue.
“We’re monitoring closely and will update here as soon as the app is back. Sorry for the disruption.”
Halifax, which is owned by Lloyds Banking Group, responded to a user on X to say it was “aware some customers are having issues with our app and online”. It said: “We’re sorry about this and are working hard to fix it.”
