Google Doesn’t Agree to Hand over User Emails Stored Abroad
https://sp-security.blogspot.com/2017/02/google-doesnt-agree-to-hand-over-user.html
The
tech giant is going to appeal a ruling by an American judge that
required the company to hand over the emails of Gmail users stored
outside the US. Google believes that it can put the privacy of non-US
citizens at risk.
The ruling has just been made that Google must comply with search warrants issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of a domestic fraud investigation. The judge decided that transferring messages from a foreign server to allow the FBI agents to review them locally could not be considered a seizure due to the lack of “meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest” in the data sought.
However, this court ruling diverges from the decision made by a federal appeals court, which handed down the opposite conclusion in a similar case with Microsoft. Google pointed out that the magistrate departed from precedent in its case, so the company would appeal the ruling and continue to push back on “overbroad warrants”.
Google’s ruling was made just six months after the court of appeals ruled that Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored in Ireland that US law enforcement needed in a narcotics case. At the time, the court decision was appreciated by dozens of tech firms and media companies, privacy advocates, the American Civil Liberties Union and US Chamber of Commerce. By the way, the same appeals court voted to not revisit the decision in January 2017, but 4 dissenting judges called on the US Supreme Court or Congress to reverse it, arguing that the ruling hurt law enforcement and raised national security concerns.
The security experts explain that both court cases involved warrants issued under the US Stored Communications Act. Many tech firms and privacy advocates consider this 30-year-old federal law outdated, particularly in light of the EU privacy concerns and the revised EU-US privacy shield data sharing agreement.
In this particular case, Google relied upon the Microsoft decision in its defense, explaining that it had complied with received warrants and turned over data Google knew was stored inside the United States. The problem is that Google sometimes breaks up emails into pieces in order to improve its network’s performance, and therefore doesn’t always know where particular emails are stored.
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The ruling has just been made that Google must comply with search warrants issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of a domestic fraud investigation. The judge decided that transferring messages from a foreign server to allow the FBI agents to review them locally could not be considered a seizure due to the lack of “meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest” in the data sought.
However, this court ruling diverges from the decision made by a federal appeals court, which handed down the opposite conclusion in a similar case with Microsoft. Google pointed out that the magistrate departed from precedent in its case, so the company would appeal the ruling and continue to push back on “overbroad warrants”.
Google’s ruling was made just six months after the court of appeals ruled that Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored in Ireland that US law enforcement needed in a narcotics case. At the time, the court decision was appreciated by dozens of tech firms and media companies, privacy advocates, the American Civil Liberties Union and US Chamber of Commerce. By the way, the same appeals court voted to not revisit the decision in January 2017, but 4 dissenting judges called on the US Supreme Court or Congress to reverse it, arguing that the ruling hurt law enforcement and raised national security concerns.
The security experts explain that both court cases involved warrants issued under the US Stored Communications Act. Many tech firms and privacy advocates consider this 30-year-old federal law outdated, particularly in light of the EU privacy concerns and the revised EU-US privacy shield data sharing agreement.
In this particular case, Google relied upon the Microsoft decision in its defense, explaining that it had complied with received warrants and turned over data Google knew was stored inside the United States. The problem is that Google sometimes breaks up emails into pieces in order to improve its network’s performance, and therefore doesn’t always know where particular emails are stored.
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SaM
extratorrent
