http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/update ... ophole/742
Believe it or not, under the Patriot Act, any company with servers on non-US soil could be made hand over personal data as long as the company was US-owned, or ultimately owned by a US corporation. So think carefully about what you store on-line. It's more worry for large organisations such as the where university I work, which could end up inadvertently exposing sensitive data for its employees / clients /students to Uncle Sam.By Zack Whittaker | November 8, 2011, 2:29pm PST
Updated European law will close Patriot Act data access loophole
Summary: An updated European directive will patch the flaws in current laws, that enables the Patriot Act to access cloud-stored data on European citizens.
BRUSSELS — European lawmakers have been revising and updating the data protection laws that apply to all 27 European member states, after it was discovered that the United States can use the Patriot Act to access European citizens’ data without their consent.
The European Commission’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding met with German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner, discussed the new directive yesterday and outlined plans for the updated law to compel any non-European company — with customers or clients within Europe — to comply with European regulations.
In a statement, it was said that the: “European Commission will come forward with proposals to reform the 1995 Data Protection Directive by the end of January 2012″.
“We both believe that companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to EU data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market”, the joint statement added.
Referring to the cloud, the new law will not only modernise the data protection laws, but will also counteract the effects of the Patriot Act in Europe.
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But hopefully, not for much longer.
