Following the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, the Internet Archive, a digital repository of billions of webpages for historical record, has announced that it is building a backup facility in Canada. Internet Archive has started a donation campaign to assemble funds for its Internet Archive of Canada.
In a statement, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle wrote, "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change."
Internet Archive, which is based in San Francisco, is composed of several preservation projects which span almost every medium. In 2012, the organization said that its archive already has 10 petabytes worth of data.
Internet Archive stores copies of films and books. The organization, as the name implies, also stores copies of early computer software programs and video games which can be emulated on modern computer systems, according to The Verge.
The Internet Archive is behind one of the most comprehensive storage efforts for the world's digital history. The organization also assists in intellectual and practical studies, including journalistic fact checking.
Kahle said that the effort to create a new digital archive in Canada would cost millions to complete. However, it will shield the organization's archives away from legal actions that the new U.S. administration could come up with.
Aside from shielding its data from pesky legal actions, Internet Archive said that building the Canada storage facility will also serve as a redundancy effort for the organization. Kahle noted that traditional libraries of yore are fragile since a single incident can wipe out their entire archives, such is the case with the famed Library of Alexandria. By building a redundant storage facility, Internet Archive is essentially securing all of its data and creating a backup site at the same time.