Microsoft says tech companies 'whipsawed' by conflicting laws on global data transfer
Microsoft is expected to testify that both outdated U.S. laws and agreements between countries on cross-border transfer of data have to be amended as tech companies are increasingly "whipsawed" in legal conflicts in which local authorities are seeking unilateral and extraterritorial warrants over data stored in the cloud.
In written testimony ahead of a U.S. House of Representatives hearing scheduled for Thursday, Microsoft's President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith wrote that countries are "increasingly claiming new extraterritorial legal authority (and interpreting existing legal authorities) to access and intercept data." In response, other countries are enacting a range of laws, including data localization and data retention requirements, so as to counter such extraterritorial authorities, he added.
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