Author(s)
Jon Crowcroft, W. Kuan Hon,
Christopher Millard, Chris Reed, Jatinder Singh and
Ian Walden
Source
International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 251-278, 2016
Summary
Reports of surveillance by the United States lead Europeans to propose a Europe-only cloud, also called the “Schengen cloud.” A Europe-only cloud would require complex legal and technical limits on the routing of data.
Policy Relevance
Balkanizing the Internet by walling off national areas stifles growth. A Europe-only cloud could violate trade agreements.
Main Points
- A Europe-only cloud would protect messages sent between European citizens from surveillance by the Unites States or other foreign governments.
- Europeans could be required to use the Europe-only cloud, or be given a choice between it and the unrestricted cloud.
- It would be hard to stop European from using popular services based in the United States, such as Google, Microsoft Office, and Facebook.
- The country where network facilities are located is not necessarily the only country with jurisdiction over the information carried by the network.
- Requiring all software and hardware providers to be based in Europe would be hard, because many European providers are supplied by or affiliated with non-European companies.
- Russia requires that data about Russian citizens be stored in Russia; this may make provision of some Internet services impossible and enable government control of the Internet in Russia.
- Brazil abandoned a proposal to require that all information about Brazilian citizens be stored in Brazil; instead, the law claims Brazilian jurisdiction over this information wherever it is stored.
- A Europe-only cloud could be created by requiring service providers to obey European law, but this might require providers to violate the laws of other nations.