Security News > 2021 > May > Microsoft Pledges to Store European Cloud Data in EU
US tech giant Microsoft pledged Thursday to process and store all European cloud-based client data in the European Union amid unease in the region over the reach of US legislation on personal data collection.
Microsoft's European clients have long been concerned over the legal status of data they store with US companies in the cloud and the extent to which they could be scrutinized by US authorities.
"In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith said:"If you are a commercial or public sector customer in the EU, we will go beyond our existing data storage commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU. "In other words, we will not need to move your data outside the EU.".
"The location of Europeans' personal data in US providers' European data centres does not always guarantee their security as they can still be subject to US law," owing to the extra-territorial reach of the latter, financial auditors KPMG noted in a white paper on the European cloud market drawn up with French IT firms including Microsoft rival OVHCloud.
Smith stressed Microsoft was committed to the EU's vision for a "Europe Fit for the Digital Age" and pledged compensation to customers were any of their data to be disclosed data in violation of European data protection rules.
Cloud services allow firms to store immense quantities of data on remote servers according to their needs but the sector is largely dominated by US providers - notably Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google.