Microsoft wants to help EU customers store their data closer to home

By Mayank Sharma
published

Microsoft will consult regulators to ensure compliance with EU laws and regulations

data center
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Microsoft (opens in new tab) has shared details about its commitment to European Union (EU) commercial customers allowing them to store and process most of their data within the EU. 

The move follows last year’s cancellation of the EU-US Privacy Shield (opens in new tab) by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) over concerns that the agreement still leaves the data of EU customers exposed to US government surveillance.

Microsoft’s latest commitment can be seen as a move to assuage some of the concerns of its EU customers, by enabling them to house their data in Microsoft's core cloud services (opens in new tab) inside data centers (opens in new tab) located within the EU. 

“If you are a commercial or public sector customer 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...We’re calling this plan the EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith sharing details about the plan.

Core cloud services

Smith was quick to add that the company already allows its commercial and public sector customers the choice to have data stored in the EU, and many Azure (opens in new tab) cloud services can already be configured to process data in the EU as well.

The new plan extends that plan to the whole gamut of Azure and Azure-powered services as well as to Microsoft 365 (opens in new tab), and Dynamics 365 (opens in new tab). 

He added that the company has already begun work on engineering this plan, which should wrap up by the end of next year. 

At the same time Microsoft will consult with EU regulators and customers to work out any kinks and make necessary tweaks particularly around unique circumstances like cybersecurity (opens in new tab). 

Via ZDNet (opens in new tab)

Mayank Sharma
Mayank Sharma

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.

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