14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s privacy lawsuit against the United States government is raising security concerns in the United Kingdom, where some MPs warned that secret data could be accessed by foreign intelligence agencies following similar legal disputes.
William Hague, the leader of the House of Commons, said in a letter sent to John Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley, that data stored on Microsoft’s data centers in Ireland was perfectly secure and there was no reason to be concerned that foreign organizations could access it because everything was protected by an international treaty.
Microsoft itself also expressed its intention to fight every search warrant unless it came from the government where the data center was located, guaranteeing that no foreign authorities should be capable of access private details stored on its servers.
UK: our data is secure on Microsoft’s servers
Hauge explained that while UK’s data, including emails and documents, was stored on Microsoft’s servers in the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands, and even though these two data centers might actually be targeted by privacy lawsuits worldwide, nobody could access information without its approval.
"The relevant servers are situated in the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands, both being territories covered by the EC Data Protection Directive," Hague explained.
"Any access by US authorities to such data would have to be by way of mutual legal assistance arrangements with those countries. The US authorities could not exercise any right of search and seizure on an extraterritorial basis," Hague said.
MPs worried that the US could access UK’s data
Last week, Hemming said that the United Kingdom held very important documents on Microsoft’s data centers, and a lawsuit such as the one that took place in the United States between the software company and the local government raised serious privacy concerns.
"The Microsoft case makes it clear that, in the end, the fact that Microsoft is a US company legally trumps the European Data Protection Directive," said Hemming.
"And where [the letter says] the US authorities could not exercise a right of search and seizure on an extraterritorial basis, well, they are doing that, in America, today."
Microsoft in its turn warned that such a privacy case could cause more concerns across the world, but also similar legal disputes with governments that would attempt to access data of users stored on other servers based overseas.
At this point, Microsoft is held in contempt for refusing to provide access to an Irish data server, but the company has already appealed the judge’s ruling and will continue the legal fight against the government.