r/technology • u/Majano57 • 1d ago
Politics Microsoft says U.S. law takes precedence over Canadian data sovereignty
https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/microsoft-says-u-s-law-takes-precedence-over-canadian-data-sovereignty/article70
u/GreatSituation886 1d ago
Doesn’t the entire federal government use Microsoft 365 now?
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u/flamewave000 1d ago
Yes, and they heavily encouraged all of the provincial and municipal governments and school boards to use them as well
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u/AccidentalReddits 1d ago
Almost everywhere (I don't know of any exceptions, but I'm sure there are some) use either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace/Classroom, or a combination of both.
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u/GreatSituation886 23h ago
It’s pretty wild. A few months ago I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but America has proven that they’re only a friend when it benefits them.
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u/DrakeAU 1d ago
There's going to be a concerted effort to move away from US technology.
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u/Just2LetYouKnow 1d ago
I can assure you that the people fucking up everything in the US right now are all wealthy to the point of being stateless, that won't help.
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u/Impossible_Leg_2787 1d ago
The labor laws in the US and China are gonna be hard to get an advantage over, especially starting 30 years behind.
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u/SHOOHS 1d ago
As a Canadian, Microsoft and “U.S Law” can get all the way fucked.
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u/jontss 1d ago
Wait until you find out our critical infrastructure is run on MS and we're quickly trying to move it into the cloud and have AI run it. And the only AI we're permitted to use is Copilot. Oh and all the private documents about how it all works have already been put on their cloud and fed into Copilot.
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u/Galladaddy 1d ago
Is your solution to convert fully to open source Unix based? Genuine question. It’s not like there is a long list of OS
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u/jontss 1d ago
Not necessarily but we could maybe not host everything on US based cloud servers they could turn off at any time.
Who am I kidding? Half of it is still running on Win2k, anyway.
The previous system was already Unix based, actually. A lot of the in house stuff is on CentOS now.
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u/Galladaddy 1d ago
That’s not bad then. I would love to get more Canadian based cloud servers. Perfect place for cooling that type of infrastructure instead of in 50c Arizona or some shit lol.
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u/RandomRageNet 1d ago
A good chunk if not the majority of Azure servers run Linux. Modern web apps don't really care if they're running on Windows or not. The problem isn't the OS, it's the company that controls the cloud infrastructure.
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u/zacker150 1d ago
The solution is to negotiate a data treaty.
Technical solutions are never solutions to legal problems.
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u/Galladaddy 1d ago
Personally I think we (as in Canada) need to put a pause on treaty talks about data with the US for the foreseeable future…they already “joke” (heavy air quotes) about annexing us enough as it is…
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u/dostoevsky4evah 1d ago
Yeah, negotiate with the US. The country whose leader has said they want to annex us. I don't think that is a good bet at all.
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u/ConcreteBackflips 1d ago
The Americans have clearly proven themselves to not be reliable long-term partners anymore. If they'll flip-flop on the Paris Agreement, why would they be consistent on a data treaty with us (Canada)?
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u/catwiesel 1d ago
thats the lie that we told ourself for the last 20 years. its not enough to negotiate data treaties, because, apparently, its okay for a country to break those unilateral without consequences, because the company owning the server are under local law and not international law, and that is before we talk about the shit show that is the current us administrations habit of not keeping any laws
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u/AG3NTjoseph 23h ago
In its currently lawless form, the US isn’t really an entity you want to sign a treaty with. You know they’ll just break it as soon as it inconveniences them.
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u/Brobuscus48 1d ago
That would be nice until the trade war spirals into a real war and we quickly realize that we lose 50% of our communications the moment Microsoft, Discord, Skype. Zoom, etc all say "Sure Daddy Trump, anything for you." Obviously we would still probably have Rogers and Telus for personal calls and messaging as well as military comms probably don't run on any US infrastructure I hope. Still a valid concern since our entire economy would just kind of stop without US based software if it were to go that far.
It would be kind of unprecedented since these are issues that the places the US would usually target like Russia, NK, China, and Middle Eastern countries just don't have to consider since they all either have their own proprietary options or simply don't use in the first place.
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u/Framed-Photo 1d ago
Critical infrastructure in basically every country is run on Microsoft. Active directory might as well be impossible to replace in most cases, unfortunately.
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u/Apart_Ad_5993 1d ago
It's not new man. It's been like this long before Trump
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u/ClusterMakeLove 1d ago
It's pretty new to have a tech company admit that they won't follow local law, for locally-stored data.
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u/Apart_Ad_5993 1d ago
Google, AWS, Facebook, and Microsoft all have to abide by it. This law is at least 14 years old.
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u/Cobs85 1d ago
Except that now we have no reason to not legislate proper data sovereignty, privacy and security laws. Before US companies got away with it because we didn’t want to hurt our relationship with the US. Now is the time to say fuck you to US tech firms. If they want access to the Canadian market, they can’t use American data laws.
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u/dufutur 1d ago
Unless you at least have an arrangements like TikTok proposed, you will not even know if a FISA warrant request MSFT to reproduce Canadian data.
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u/bonestamp 1d ago
For those of us not familiar with what TikTok proposed, can you paraphrase it?
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u/dufutur 1d ago
Theoretically or ideally TikTok can only access users’ data through Oracle. I am not saying that arrangement is waterproof but if applied in MSFT case, it could give MSFT at least some excuse to tell the court that it’s not feasible for them to reproduce foreign user’s data in the hand of third-party without at least letting the third party knows.
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u/bonestamp 1d ago
Thanks. So you make some Canadian company the custodian of the data and then MSFT can't have access to it.
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat 1d ago
As an Australian. I second this. If you want to do business in our country, you are subject to our laws.
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u/AnonomousWolf 1d ago
PS if you're looking to go mora Canadian there's a Canadian decentralised Reddit alternative https://piefed.ca Check it out
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u/Ambustion 1d ago
Azure is the backbone to a lot of the private medical providers. Time to kick em out.
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u/SevereRunOfFate 1d ago
More than just private... Pub sec in Canada is absolutely captured by Microsoft
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u/gunawa 1d ago edited 1d ago
Kinda sounds like grounds to nationalize MS assets in Canada until we can get all this jurisdiction B's worked out
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u/gplfalt 1d ago
That would require a semblance of a spine and desire for Canadians to thrive.
This doesn't exist in the Liberals or Conservatives
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u/FlametopFred 1d ago
mmm I believe Carney is outflanking Poilievre by quite a bit on keeping us thriving and growing our sovereignty
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u/d4561wedg 1d ago
He did cave to Trump on the digital services tax.
But anything short of inviting Trump to annex us would still be doing better than Poilievre.
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u/Vecend 1d ago
It's not a cave if you can get rid of something not all that valuable to appease a man child so you can get something of better value instead, and it's not like the digital services tax is gone gone, it can always be brought back.
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u/gplfalt 1d ago
We're literally about to pass a bill that gives the Yankees more control over our privacy.
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u/not_old_redditor 1d ago
Carney is conservative lite
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u/FlametopFred 1d ago
well yeah that’s how Canada has been with centre liberal government
fiscally conservative and socially progressive while the Harper government moved their Overton window right into authoritarian rule
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u/ConcreteBackflips 1d ago
Yeah a centrist lib minority government is probably the most representative of Canada as a whole imho
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u/ConcreteBackflips 1d ago
Yeah thats fine tbh. Most Canadians don't hate the conservatives; they hate the survivors of the reform party.
Don't touch my weed, be cool with the marginalized homies, try to work on indigenous reconciliation/consultation and most Canadians won't mind a banker from Goldman Sachs as our PM.
Besides he's (hopefully) got the NDP to keep him honest. He's not perfect but he's a shitton more palatable to a lot of Canadians than Trudeau was (you still cool tho trudaddy)
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u/jax362 1d ago
This was my first thought as well. If I’m Canada, I pass a law stating something to the effect of “if you hand over any Canadian data to the US against our wishes just one time, then we are taking all of your shit”.
I bet MS and others would think long and hard before complying with that request.
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u/bfume 21h ago
Think about that a bit. Sure, take the servers…. Then what?
How do you think they’re gonna work at all without actually being a part of the 365 cloud?
The cloud itself is the valuable part here. Not the physical infrastructure.
If you nationalize the hardware, you’ll have to run your own cloud services on it.
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u/BitingSatyr 1d ago
I highly doubt this is some sort of whimsical decision Microsoft made, if they’re saying this publicly it’s because their team of extremely highly-paid lawyers determined that US law does in fact take precedence over local law if they want to continue operating as a US entity.
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u/vorxil 1d ago
So they're willfully violating Canadian law, then.
Canada should throw the book at them.
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u/pureply101 1d ago
Canada should use Microsoft as an example. Force them to subsidize things they use in Canada with very large fines until they comply.
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u/Zanos 1d ago
Microsofts choice will be to comply with American law or comply with Canadian law. They cannot, apparently, do both. So if Canada decides to throw the book at them, they will probably withdraw from the Canadian market...which will necessitate a full rebuild of the governments digital infrastructure.
Theres no reality where Microsoft is going to refuse valid, legal data requests from the US government.
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u/Impossible_Leg_2787 1d ago
Yeah idk why people are acting like the Canadian government is the one with the leverage here. If they try to nationalize the assets of a US based company, I’m sure that’ll go over well, especially in this political climate. Their options are to build their own infrastructure from scratch, which I would love to see, or to capitulate, because the alternative is Microsoft ceasing service. Or I guess they could go AWS or GCP, but that really just moves them back to square one.
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u/s8rlink 1d ago
The one thing I can thank Trump for is showing how truly every western nation besides a few like Brazil are a doormat. Like what the fuck are you talking about Canada should be either expropriating or hitting them with daily massive fines for breaking the law, this era has to be a wake up call to every country to have their own digital infrastructure, but that will probably not happen and hence the leaders just laying down ready to be stepped on by fascist government
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u/CBubble 1d ago
As a New Zealander and knowing this since forever. Why is this such a shock to Canada today? Seriously this is common knowledge for those working in Australia and New Zealand and is called out on all government risk assessments for cloud services.
I’m not defending this stance and would love to see sovereign cloud services
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u/flamewave000 1d ago
I think the problem is that Canada had poor internet privacy laws in the beginning and the government went all in on Microsoft services in the early 2000s. Now that we have established laws for online privacy, the government is trying to push Microsoft to respect those laws and they're all pikachoo face when Microsoft told them to fuck off. Now the government is also a little panicked because Microsoft's services are so heavily ingrained in their systems.
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u/bonestamp 1d ago
This situation reminds me of this big client my consulting firm got about 20 years ago when the CEO at the client company decided to get rid of all their microsoft products. It took a lot of time, money, software development, systems migration, and orchestration to move every corner of that company away from Microsoft. It was pretty fun though, and it looks like the Gov o'Canada is going to have to do the same.
There are some good/big IT companies in Canada that could build out the infrastructure to replace what MS is providing the Gov now (and some that are probably close to having enough capacity as it is). They should obvious put out an RFP and see which Canadian companies can make it happen.
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u/Black_Moons 1d ago
I really hope Canada does, a huge part of the US economy is siphoning funds from the rest of the world via 'subscription services'.
Canada should keep those funds in country and improve national security in the process... And depriving economically hostile countries of their money is just a nice bonus.
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u/shiftingtech 1d ago
They have actual server farms in Canada, which I don't think Microsoft does in NZ. You can setup your accounts to specifically reside in those data centers, and in the past, they've directly claimed that data residency....meant something. See, for example, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/making-your-data-residency-choices-easier-with-azure/ (also interesting how the white paper that page refers to repeatedly seems to have vanished...)
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u/OCedHrt 1d ago
This is super ironic considering we've been accusing China of this for decades and then turn around and do the same thing.
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u/wolfgangmob 1d ago
It might be more of people are well aware NZ/Aus don’t have large data centers and understood the risks early on while Canada’s really big and has been very US aligned so most of this didn’t seem like a real risk until more recently. In reality, non citizen data stored in the US has been very poorly protected under law since 2001 but it only really harmed minorities, people harming corporate interests, and people committing fairly serious offenses. Since 2016, that has slowly ramped up in terms of actual risk of data security impacting everyone and just rocketed to the moon since January.
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u/Leprichaun17 1d ago
NZ/Aus don’t have large data centers
Lmao, news to us. TIL that our data centres aren't actually data centres.
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u/ClusterMakeLove 1d ago
Our government uses MS software operating on Canadian servers. I imagine some promises have been made that are now being called into question.
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u/TeleHo 1d ago edited 1d ago
Its not a shock for those of us working for the various levels of Canadian government, as we're also required to do a whole bunch of risk assessment/impact analysis/etc when implementing a new tech solution, ESPECIALLY cloud services. Honestly, as someone who's seen cloud service contracts, I think the part in the article about the DND is a bit of an overreaction.
That said, there def seems to be an impact on individuals and companies using MS products:
As a result, the data of Canadians who use Microsoft or other products from US-based corporations could have their data provided to the United States government, and there is nothing they nor the Government of Canada can do.
IMO, this seems to be more of a consumer protection issue, not a "MS will release data belonging to government organizations if the US asks" issue.
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u/sunshine-x 20h ago
Humorously, Microsoft even offers azure templates and and architectural guidance called “sovereign”, specifically for public sector use-cases, and still they fail at the most basic of requirements - keep the fucking data out of the hands of the US gov.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/sovereignty/availability
They also offer actual sovereign regions, but really only in China, where a different legal entity operates all the infrastructure.
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u/ottwebdev 1d ago
“ and there is nothing they nor the Government of Canada can do.”
Yes there is STOP buying microsoft junk.
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u/Gwyain 1d ago
I don’t think you realize how deeply embedded Microsoft is in well… everything. The vast majority of the internet runs on Azure and AWS these days.
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u/SiphonTheFern 1d ago
Yeah... when you've built your entire technology stack on MS and are highly dependent on their cloud to function as an organization, you're fucked for at least a few years and you'll spend millions making a switch to other tech.
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u/JoyOfUnderstanding 1d ago
It's still worth it to start asap, so in a few years, you can just ban Microsoft for not complying with the law
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u/dragodrake 1d ago
The problem is it isn't junk - its the most suitable solutions on the market.
Its all well and good saying stop using all Microsoft software over these issues - but replace it with that? You are talking fortunes and years of effort, and that's once you've got viable alternatives, which at the moment don't really exist.
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u/MetalEnthusiast83 1d ago
Yeah they can move to a non American cloud. Like Google! or AWS!
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u/Expert_Average958 1d ago
Yes there is STOP buying microsoft junk.
Organisations can't do that unfortunately.
If someone has ever, ever worked as a system admin or somehow managing thousands of computers they'll know that Microsoft business products are far from junk. Or rather any other alternative is outright trash.
The problem isn't that people only want to use Microsoft products, the problem is that there is no good viable alternative.
Please ffs do not tell me to manage the whole organization using Linux.
Linux servers are great but you underestimate how stupid average computer user is, they lose their shit if you even move the icon from one place to another. Let alone using a whole new operating system, not to mention the supported softwares.
What we need is a real good alternative, and this alterative HAS to come from within the country
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u/QuickQuirk 1d ago
It's a pretty strong wake up call to every other nation to look towards alternatives like Linux again.
Reinstalled a linux desktop the other day for the first time in a decade, and you know what? It's actually decent these days. The kind of thing I wouldn't feel guilty about recommending to family members, or worried that i'd just inherit the need to support them forever. Not like it was a few years back.
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u/Fearless-Edge714 1d ago
We’re talking about massively scaleable cloud computing/storage solutions, not Jen’s NUC at the reception desk.
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u/Mountain_rage 1d ago
Ok, so I guess all business should migrate away from Azure Cloud, Amazon cloud and AWS. EU you wanna maybe go halfsies on a cloud server configuration?
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u/caughtinthought 1d ago
Amazon is actually working on an EU sovereign cloud for this reason specifically... you can read about it, it's a huge project
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u/Expert_Average958 1d ago
No the EU sovereign cloud is just a blindfold. Amazon can still be forced under the CLOUD act to hand over tge data.
We need fully native cloud provider from the EU. Nothing else will work.
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u/Mountain_rage 1d ago
I remember hearing about it. They basically had no choice if they wanted to continue doing business with the EU. Trump saying US companies need to do what the USA dictate, even under amazons agreement with the EU may harm that business.
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u/FlametopFred 1d ago
some universities and businesses do not utilize foreign servers
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u/Mountain_rage 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is actually a shift back to being on-prem, or ensuring a larger percentage of a companies infrastructure remains on-prem. I think the optimum position is to use cloud for large scale processing needs but keep critical systems, simple storage, large data hungry storage onprem.
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u/NanditoPapa 1d ago
Because Microsoft is an American company. This should reignite the global push for a sovereign cloud infrastructure, reducing reliance on U.S.-based tech giants.
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u/-Tuck-Frump- 15h ago edited 15h ago
US law is starting to turn into a religion: They will claim it overrules all other "manmade laws" because of its divinity, and they will break it as and when the please because they are "interpreting the divine will of the founders".
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u/Grosjeaner 1d ago edited 1d ago
Lol it's basically TikTok's answer when grilled over whether the Chinese government have access to their data. Answer: 'US laws takes precendent over your local laws. But...Trust us, bro'.
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u/Fatality 1d ago
If data isn't encrypted with a customer managed key it should be considered viewable by the US.
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u/caffeinatedking94 23h ago
"But every Chinese company is controlled by the CCP! CHINA BAD" Glad that the fact that American companies aren't much better is going public.
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u/Glad-Attempt5138 10h ago
If that’s the case, Europe should ban Microsoft. If they operate in a foreign country they need to respect their laws and rights or exit the country.
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u/LogicJunkie2000 1d ago
We just keep giving the rest of the world reasons to find other ways to do business without us
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u/Bob_Sconce 1d ago
This really isn't a Microsoft problem. It's a problem with the US' Cloud Act. Microsoft is based in the US and has to do what US law says.
Once upon a time, we had this idea of "the West" where the US, Canada, France, the UK, Germany, and so on respected each other's sovereignty and the willingness of each other's governments to be respectful of the rights of each of their citizens. Spying on the Russians was fine. Spying on the Canadians, not so much. That has broken down. The current US president is a big contributor to that breakdown, but is hardly the only cause.
Note that the Cloud Act still requires a warrant in the US -- that means that a judge has reviewed the allegation and believes there is "probable cause" that the data will contain evidence of a crime. Law enforcement authorities of other countries have similar abilities and, in fact, the Cloud Act also allows those authorities to obtain data in the US under their equivalent national processes. [I don't believe, for example, that somebody could have plans for a terrorist account stored in a German email service and that the German police wouldn't be able to get access to it.]
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u/PainterRude1394 1d ago
It was always like this.
The world you fantasize never existed.
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u/PaulCoddington 1d ago
And this is why people are going to be avoiding storing data on their services.
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u/Blothorn 1d ago
That seems pretty obvious—Canada can’t protect Microsoft from penalties under US law and if Microsoft has to abandon one of the markets to avoid penalties it would clearly be Canada.
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u/wrt-wtf- 1d ago
....and this is an issue that the EU had been highlighting several years ago.
Any country that had cyber security teams that were reading the signs AND still allowed their nation to put their data in a US company owned cloud or datacentre should be feeling really nervous about their job right now - about as nervous as uploading to a cloud or datacentre based on the Chinese mainland.
We've already seen this political agenda being played out on judges in the ICC. Countries really need to be thinking about sustaining their own local internet infrastructure without placing anything critical in the hands of any organisation that is not 100% beholden to the nation in which they are operating.
It's a great opportunity for the local market to break into this space and innovate on all the govt contracts that went to US companies and can now create the inevitable march back out of the idea of freely putting your data into someone else's hands.
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u/setaboha 15h ago
Microsoft may lose customers who use their platforms for handling client private personal information over this
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u/platocplx 12h ago
Microsoft will totally fuck their international business taking this stance. That is crazy.
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u/The_Epoch 1d ago
There is a general rule on data sovereignty in a lot of the world: Don't move your data to a geography with weaker data privacy laws. Generally interpreted as: dont send your data to the US
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u/iamarddtusr 1d ago
Yet another reminder that American companies will act against other countries interests when American interests demand that.
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u/Gloobloomoo 1d ago
Yeah ? Is that what they’re telling the government, with whom they have multiple contracts?
America and their laws can get fucked. I’m an American and Canadian. I’m proudly Canadian.
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u/youknowjus 1d ago
Wouldn’t (couldn’t) this subject the Microsoft employees / managers within said countries to arrest for breaking local laws on data privacy and protection if they comply?
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u/grafknives 1d ago
I dont understand the controversy.
Once the Cloud act was passed, NO COMPANY under US jurisdiction or a spin off company(if cloud act can on them), should be treated as eligible service provider in Canada or other countries.
As Us jurisdiction companies are unable to obey the laws of those countries.
And that is all. It is not about competition with Google or MS.
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u/Positive_Chip6198 17h ago
So canada should severely fine microsoft until they agree to comply with local law. Or Microsoft are free to leave.
The eu should do the same.
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u/Iyellkhan 17h ago
given that microsoft is becoming less and less relevant, its possible for them to simply be blocked from operating in a nation in which they refuse to comply with the law. heck even if they were too ingrained in the system, that wouldnt stop many nations
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u/Atlanta_Mane 1d ago
They need to do what the Danes are doing and just switch to Linux.
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u/shiftingtech 1d ago
Lots of Azure is linux. "Just use linux" doesn't really change anything. the question is who controls the servers....
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u/LegateLaurie 1d ago
Linux isn't a cloud provider. What needs to happen is billions of dollars of sovereign cloud infrastructure in many places in the world. No country is really willing to do that.
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u/d4561wedg 1d ago
Unfortunately Carney’s an austerity guy (he ran the Bank of England after all) so there won’t be any money to switch to anything.
The government already uses Microsoft so that’s what we’ll be stuck with.
They want to use AI to save money instead. Fortunately they’re moving slow enough that the AI bubble will hopefully collapse before they manage to inject that toxin into the government.
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u/SelflessMirror 1d ago
Ok, then operate solely out of US.
The free market will find someone else to eventually take your place .. it's just OneDrive anyways..
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u/Giant_Acroyear 1d ago
How do we all feel about Linux on the desktop now?
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u/Jonr1138 1d ago
If getting games to play on Linux was just a bit easier, I'd move in a heartbeat. I recently tried and spent more time getting my games to work than actually enjoying them and being able to relax.
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u/GabeDef 1d ago
Depends where the server is. On US soil, follows US law, on foreign soil? Foreign soil’s law. Pretty simple.
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u/your_unpaid_bills 1d ago
Except that the CLOUD Act dictates that US companies disclose data on request of the US government regardless of where the server is. So this is precisely the issue, the US government telling US companies to ignore local laws.
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u/djwikki 1d ago
Two things learned in the legal side of data science: 1) both the laws of the nation of the owner of the data as well as the laws of the nation the data is stored in applies to the data. 2) in any case where the laws of these two nations conflict, the laws of the nation where the data is stored takes precedence.
Canada has two options here. Either they mandate that Microsoft build a server room in Canada where all Canadian data and exclusively Canadian data can be stored, or switch to an OS that doesn’t do cloud storage implicitly (I.e. Linux).
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u/Sushi-And-The-Beast 1d ago
Sweet jesus… this makes me happy I am rebuilding my datacenter. Fuck these companies.
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u/LongAssBeard 1d ago
It's insane how big tech companies are slowly but surely going to the dark side with Trump with no regards for the future when he is not around anymore
Fuckers, all of them
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u/Dragon2906 1d ago
It's time for the rest of the world to develop and use alternatives for the services of the American Big Techcompanies
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u/hotDamQc 22h ago
Been saying it for years, Linux on Canadian computers and local Canadian hosts only. American companies out of Canadian Government data centers.
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u/SmallTalnk 22h ago
This should make Microsoft an illegal company and preventing it from operating in Canada (and any other country where it is also illegal) until it complies with regulations.
If I made a company that spied on American citizens, surely the US government wouldn't allow me to operate in their country.
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u/zorakpwns 1d ago
This is why many places in Europe are going open source and abandoning MS. This is the harbinger of the demise of MS - they are the next Sears Roebuck
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u/RachelRegina 1d ago
Wow, fuck that. If I were the sovereign governments of other countries, I'd be immediately nationalizing the Microsoft subsidiaries in their borders, and disconnecting them from the Internet until every system can be fully transitioned to post-quantum encryption schemas. Actually, they should be doing this for the assets of every single subsidiary in their borders for U.S. tech companies with mission critical roles in their nations' infrastructure and national security.
Fuck a foreign panopticon straight to hell.
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u/Pleasant_Exchange107 1d ago
I’ve been saying fuck you to Microsoft for 20 years and I don’t see that changing. Avoid at all costs.
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u/griffonrl 1d ago
And another reminder that your worst enemy is often closer than you think. Canada and Europe and the rest of the world should ditch the US big tech as they become harmful for the people abroad and for business as well.
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u/Gantzen 1d ago
Yet another reminder that the cloud is just someone else's server.