After having read the news article ‘Supreme court will hear U.S.-Microsoft battle over email’ on the website of USA today, I started wondering about the question whether data should be location-bound or not (USA Today, 2017).
Using this ‘battle’ as example, I would like to discuss the topic of globalization of data and share my thoughts on it in this blog. But firstly, let me give a brief summary of the U.S vs. Microsoft case: The FBI requested to see email stored by Microsoft for an investigation. However, Microsoft claims that the FBI does not have the authority to request that, since the email are stored on a database in Ireland and therefore are not on American soil. Both Microsoft and the U.S. government have been ruled in favour by different judges, so now the upper court is going to take on the case and make a final ruling.
There are three different viewpoints regarding this case:
(1) People who believe the supreme court should rule in favour of the U.S government.
(2) People who believe the supreme court should rule in favour of Microsoft.
(3) People who believe the supreme court should not have taken on this case at all.
So, why do these groups believe they are right and the others are not?
The first group says that it is the government’s responsibility to investigate and prosecute crimes and to fend off terrorism and other kinds of threats to national security. By not being able to get a hold of those emails, this group believes the government won’t be able to do this and thus is it a threat to national security and public safety. They claim that this will make it easy for terrorist to avoid the US government, because they simply need to make sure their messages are stored in databases which are not located in the US (Reuters, 2017).
The second group claims that if the US government will be able to receive information about non-US citizens which is stored outside the US, this can also be done by other countries to US citizens. Also, they believe that this would interfere with the privacy of citizens and that countries should respect each other’s sovereignty (Bloomberg, 2017).
The third group believes that courts cannot come up with a suitable ruling for this case based on the current legislation. They claim that congress should first come up with new legislation that is more suitable for the time we live in, since the current legislation on this topic is still from the time of the floppy disc (USA Today, 2017).
Personally, I think that data should be location bound to the country where it is stored due to privacy reasons and that governments should work together to ward off terrorism. Meaning that this kind of information only gets shared when both countries agree that it is relevant for the investigation, instead of the US government being able to retrieve all information stored by American companies. Especially since these American companies, like Google and Microsoft, are active in so many countries and possess so much information about citizens of those countries. What about you? What are your thoughts on this topic?
Hurley, L. (2017, October 16). U.S. Supreme Court decide major Microsoft email privacy fight. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from reuters.com: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-microsoft/u-s-supreme-court-to-decide-major-microsoft-email-privacy-fight-idUSKBN1CL20U
Stohr, G. (2017, October 16). Microsoft Email-Access Fight with U.S. Gets Top Court Review. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from Bloomberg.com: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-16/microsoft-email-access-fight-with-u-s-gets-supreme-court-review
Wolf, R. (2017, October 16). Supreme Court will hear U.S.-Microsoft battle over emails. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from usatoday.com: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/16/supreme-court-hear-u-s-microsoft-battle-over-emails/761346001/
