Microsoft says that it has accomplished a multi-year challenge to permit Europe-based clients utilizing its cloud companies to retailer and course of knowledge within the EU.
The challenge, the EU Knowledge Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud, started in January 2023, went on for 2 extra years, and eventually wrapped up this February, Microsoft said. With its completion, European clients can retailer and course of knowledge for Microsoft core cloud companies, together with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Energy Platform, and most Azure companies, inside the EU and European Free Commerce Affiliation areas (EFTA).
A rising variety of tech giants and cloud suppliers supply European knowledge residency applications alongside the traces of the EU Knowledge Boundary. These assist clients adjust to European native privateness and knowledge safety legal guidelines just like the GDPR, Germany’s Federal Knowledge Safety Act, and the U.Ok.’s knowledge safety laws. Knowledge residency refers back to the bodily location of a corporation’s knowledge, in addition to the native legal guidelines and coverage necessities imposed on that knowledge.
Based on Microsoft, for cloud companies supported by the EU Knowledge Boundary, buyer knowledge and “pseudonymized” private knowledge are saved and processed in datacenters positioned in international locations inside the EU or EFTA. “Skilled companies knowledge,” which incorporates knowledge that’s offered to Microsoft, like sure log knowledge, is saved at relaxation.
Microsoft notes that, for particular Azure companies, clients might need to get hold of an expert companies knowledge storage dedication. This page outlines the necessities.
EU regulators have spent years flagging considerations about how Microsoft processes the information of customers of its cloud companies, together with in relation to the authorized foundation Microsoft claims for processing knowledge and a scarcity of readability within the wording of its cloud companies contracts. To be honest, Microsoft isn’t the one goal. In Could 2023, Meta was fined $1.3 billion by Eire’s knowledge privateness watchdog over knowledge transfers to the U.S.
In July 2023, the EU and U.S. agreed on a brand new “Knowledge Privateness Framework,” permitting knowledge transfers so long as specific privateness ensures and protections had been made. Microsoft nonetheless last year announced plans to maintain all European cloud clients’ private knowledge inside the EU.