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New EU Rules To Curb Transfer of European Data To the U.S.
dryriver points out a report at The Guardian about new regulations in the European Union that are intended to protect data from foreign government agencies like the NSA. Quoting:
"New European rules aimed at curbing questionable transfers of data from E.U. countries to the U.S. are being finalized in Brussels in the first concrete reaction to the Edward Snowden disclosures on U.S. and British mass surveillance of digital communications. Regulations on European data protection standards are expected to pass the European parliament committee stage on Monday after the various political groupings agreed on a new compromise draft following two years of gridlock on the issue. The draft would make it harder for the big U.S. internet servers and social media providers to transfer European data to third countries, subject them to E.U. law rather than secret American court orders, and authorize swingeing fines possibly running into the billions for the first time for not complying with the new rules. ... The current rules are easily sidestepped by the big Silicon Valley companies, Brussels argues. The new rules, if agreed, would ban the transfer of data unless based on E.U. law or under a new transatlantic pact with the Americans complying with E.U. law. ... The proposed ban has been revived directly as a result of the uproar over operations by the U.S.'s National Security Agency."
Slashdot is about to SHUT DOWN get ready people this is it... THIS IS TEH SLAPOCALYPSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm delighted.
Pity they couldn't ban GCHQ from reading any of it.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
Expect more datacenters on European soil. This addresses the problem of bulk data transfer and storage.
In other words, the analytics will only get better.
It sounds like the EU is outlawing these clauses. I don't know about the US, but here (Brussels) a clause in a contract is invalid if it is illegal.
So, they're going to make US Internet companies subject to EU laws rather than American laws?
Somehow, I don't think that's going to work as well as they (pretend to) think it will....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Oh great, now that we finally are getting seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for protectionism of trade in goods, now we are going to have protectionism for data!
Do you think the US will retaliate and force data on US citizens to not be stored in Europe?
don't they realize the nsa and cia have european-based operations, too?
Actually they do, the story specifically states:
But the proposed rules remain riddled with loopholes for intelligence services to exploit, MEPs admit.
The EU has no powers over national or European security, for example, nor its own proper intelligence or security services, which are jealously guarded national prerogatives. National security can be and is invoked to ignore and bypass EU rules.
"This regulation does not regulate the work of intelligence services," said Albrecht. "Of course, national security is a huge loophole and we need to close it. But we can't close it with this regulation."
So nothing will be solved here, the data will simply flow in the reverse direction and national security agencies of the EU will be filtering EU users data and sending it on to the NSA, and the NSA will do the same for data from the rest of the world.
New Boss, same as the Old Boss.
All the Big players will build (or already have) data centers in the EU, and all that they really lose is redundancy in their data backup. But there will be no less spying, it will actually increase the number of national agencies rooting through your data.
This effort is all for show, as well as smaller players using the whole NSA flap to leverage their position. But even this won't work for them because the EU customers want to have their Facebook and Google and their Twitter just as much and anyone else. So the same big players will establish or beef up their data-centers, and succumb to will of the various member states.
But hey, lets bitch-slap those goddamed Americans quick and get the infrastructure and employment back in our countries and under our control before anyone figures this out.
Who will step up and be the European Snowden?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Wow. A post straight out of 1988.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The EU better be careful or Wall Street will get mad.
Not really. I'm afraid you interpreted that statement in a very "american" way. European (*) intelligence agencies aren't saints, but they are definitely subjected to far more oversight than the NSA, and no, they don't do the same. Even if they wanted, they couldn't because they don't have sufficient budgets.
Obviously data protection rules do not apply to intelligence services, but this doesn't mean that a european intelligence agency can ask a company to give in all its users' data, as it happily happens in the US. In europe they need a court warrant for that, no matter whether it's national security or not. And they cannot share bulk data with the NSA, but only data strictly related to military or terrorist threats. The fact that the EU data protection regulation doesn't apply to intelligence services simply means that once data get (legally) gathered by an intelligence agency, users cannot ask for "the right to be forgotten" or other data protection rights.
(*) I don't include the UK and the GHCQ in what I call "europe". The first is just an american protectorate, the second an NSA's subsidiary. If any british reader feels offended, I don't care. As a european citizen, I'm waiting for them to get out of the EU, fast.
There are all sorts of cooperation treaties between EU and the US. All will happen is more stuff will move into organizations like NATO.
These guys are probably not true Scotsmen^WEuropeans either.
And we've yet to see what else those leaks hold about other countries - next batch is about France and Spain, let's see what they have to say about them.
Nor are these guys.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
There are already clauses in cloud email services for example that the user agrees that data may be transferred outside EU and to all third parties and nothing can be expected to be private. It will just be one more line in the EULA and change absolutely nothing.
those clauses get invalidated then. because that's how law works. if you got get around everything by putting it in a contract.. why would any company adhere to any consumer protection laws?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That is really neither here nor there. This law won't protect Europeans' data any more than it already is (or isn't,) and I'm pretty sure that they're well aware of that.
I think the purpose for this is mainly an economic one: They want to require IT that services be hosted within their own borders, which they probably believe will encourage job growth. However I think that it will just end up being like a tariff, and the result will be that Europeans will pay up the ass for data warehousing compared to the rest of the world, while gaining nothing in return.
This could have a few other implications as well; namely, that companies who provide these services will only operate in Europe unofficially. Think how mega.co.nz operates out of New Zealand and therefore doesn't have to follow any US laws, meanwhile it contracts with firms all over the world (including the US) for storage and co-hosting. A side effect of that is that they don't have to pay European taxes or have to bother with any European laws at all for that matter.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think a better approach would be to require mega style encryption among all providers - that is, only the end users hold the keys to their data. Of course, that would make it so that Europe couldn't surveil its own citizens like the NSA, and they don't want that.
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