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The Patriot Act and the EU Cloud

Posted by samzenpus on from the lets-see-what-you-got-there dept.

ISoldat53 writes "Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft UK said that the Patriot Act allows government access to data in its cloud services even in Europe. Though he said that 'customers would be informed wherever possible,' he could not provide a guarantee that they would be informed if a gagging order, injunction or U.S. National Security Letter permits it."

4 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Politics making technology useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So basically the U.S. Patriot Act is making "cloud" storage a useless technology.

    The Internet will hopefully route around the "cloud".

  2. Government Agents by jrumney · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If private US corporations can be used by the USA to extend its intelligence gathering reach like this, does that mean their employees can be treated as government agents by non-US law enforcement agencies? Could a privacy breach turn into an espionage case because of this? It'd certainly make me think twice about accepting a job for a US based company.

  3. Depends by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Er, presumably if there were such a National Security Letter, housing it yourself wouldnt give you much choice in the matter either

    Actually it would since my house is in Canada and I'd politely inform them that they'd need to talk to the Canadian government and, if they agree, have them make the request. Similarly in the EU US government demands are worthless. Canada and the EU (or at least the UK) have intelligence sharing treaties with the US so they can get access to the data but only if they ask and convince the local government first and it is in compliance with local law.

    This is exactly as it should be. MS could end up in real legal trouble if the US government forces them to disclose data on their EU servers in contravention of EU privacy laws.

  4. Re:More reasons why the Cloud is a disaster by The+Second+Horseman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Try getting a company like Google or Microsoft, when they're trying to sell you hosted services, to say anything other than "we comply with lawful requests for information from governments". Note that they don't just mean your government. They mean the government of any country, and if it's a country they do business in, they have to weigh your business against access to an entire market. Which do you think they'll choose? They may try to dodge by only hosting the information in some geographical locations, but that doesn't help much.