Microsoft says it will not move data out of the EU
Microsoft says that the company’s customers in the European Union will be able to process and store all data 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. This commitment will apply across all of Microsoft’s core cloud services – Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365@ Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post.
Smith describes the statement as commitment to the EU’s vision for a “Europe Fit for the Digital Age.” He also announced also creating a Privacy Engineering Center of Excellence in Dublin to guide our European customers in choosing the right solutions for building robust data protection into their cloud workloads, including to meet regulatory requirements.
“We are beginning work immediately on this added step, and we will complete by the end of next year the implementation of all engineering work needed to execute on it. We’re calling this plan the EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud.”
Smith says the is the company responding to customers that want “even greater data residency commitments.”
CONSULTATIONS
He said the company will continue to consult with customers and regulators about this plan in the coming months.
“We have already begun engineering work so our core cloud services will both store and process in the EU all personal data of our EU commercial and public sector customers, if they so choose. This plan includes any personal data in diagnostic data and service-generated data, and personal data we use to provide technical support.”
“We will also extend technical controls such as Lockbox and customer-managed encryption for customer data across Microsoft core cloud services. We will build these EU Data Boundary Solutions into our core cloud services to enhance our current offerings for customers. We will conduct an EU Cloud Customer Summit this fall where we will share more about this work.”
DATACENTERS
“Our EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud will be powered by our substantial and ongoing investments in an expansive European datacenter infrastructure. We opened our first datacenter in Europe in 2009, and our EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud will leverage datacenters we’ve announced or currently operate in 13 countries: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.”
In addition to customers in EU member states, customers in Norway and Switzerland will also have access to the EU Data Boundary.
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