Microsoft has launched a new kind of cloud service in Germany where user data is controlled by a “data trustee” operating under German law.
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The company’s cloud-based services including Azure, Microsoft itself will manage all Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online, but German telecoms company Deutsche Telekom will manage the data.
“Microsoft is pioneering a new, unique solution for customers in Germany and Europe”.
The decision stemmed from a case lodged by Austrian law student Max Schrems, who challenged the 2000 “Safe Harbor” agreement between Washington and Brussels on the grounds it did not properly protect European data.
Microsoft has pledged not to access customer data stored in its two soon-to-open German datacentres without the approval of the end user or local “data trustee” T-Systems.
“Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every individual on the planet to achieve more”, said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
“All customer data will remain exclusively in Germany”, Deutsche Telekom said in a statement, adding that the service will also be available to European clients outside Germany. This should help the company provide cloud services to users across 28 European Union countries, and that too, with no intervention from other countries. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also has data centers in Germany near Frankfurt.
Large-scale spying on your own citizens as well as everyone else across the globe is one sure way to make yourself unpopular, and the USA government and intelligence community is starting to pay the price for their arrogant and unethical surveillance activities.
In an unusual arrangement, the data centers will be under the control of Deutsche Telekom. Even then, MS will only be able to deal with this data under T-Systems’ close supervision. With the local company in control, there is much less chance of United States government influence for gaining access to stored data.
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As Ars reported yesterday, Microsoft is spending £1.3 billion to expand its network of data centres in Europe, and has 24 cloud regions around the world. According to the The Financial Times customers will have to pay a fee to store their data in German data centers.
