Microsoft: we won't take cloud data out of EU

 

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By Barry Collins and Jon Honeyball

Posted on 20 May 2009 at 17:47

Microsoft has assured British businesses that data stored on its cloud will not leave the EU.

PC Pro's Jon Honeyball dragged the confession from Microsoft executives, after voicing his concern about British corporate data being stored on foreign servers.

Click here to read Jon Honeyball's blog on Microsoft's cloud concessions

The EU Data Protection Directive 1998 says member states should ensure that data is only transferred to a country outside the EU if that country "ensures an adequate level of data protection".

However, as Jon Honeyball notes in this month's PC Pro, Microsoft's terms and conditions for hosted services - such as Exchange, SharePoint or the new Azure cloud service - don't stipulate where company data will be stored.

After raising the issue with Microsoft, the company's senior director of operations, Mike Ziock, confirmed that data from British companies will be stored in Dublin and backed up in Amsterdam. At no stage will data leave the EU, Ziock insisted.

Despite such assurances, the company refused to say when - or even if - the terms and conditions will be updated.

As Jon Honeyball concludes, "Microsoft needs to do much work to clarify and simplify the T&Cs such that they are both relevant to the UK/EU marketplace and are binding here."