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back to article Amazon's AWS opens data center in Germany – just as we said

Amazon’s European mainland customers wary of US spies can now build scalable clouds on AWS and stay entirely on the Continent. The giant today announced the opening of a data centre in Frankfurt, Germany – just as we reported it would in July. The data centre – or "region" as Amazon calls them – is the company's second in the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "saying customers’ content can now fall entirely under the umbrella of European Union data protection laws and outside the reach of United States regulations like the Patriot Act......Further, he said, requests for data from the US authorities had to be legally binding – via court order – and couldn’t be over-reaching....."

    Tell the US courts that.....Microsoft will beg to differ.

    13 0 Reply
    1. Lee D Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      And if MS in the EU complies with the US demands without due EU process, they will be in court in the EU.

      Given that the EU is actually larger than their US market, it will hurt.

      It's not a question of what MS (US) wants to do, or gets told to do. To comply, someone in the EU has to be complicit - either by doing it themselves, or knowingly allowing it (which is a failure of Data Protection obligations).

      The US can order what they like. The guy in the EU who provides the facility or does it for MS (US) will be up before an EU court from the second he does it (or allows it).

      Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and allowing the US arm of a company to access EU-stored personal data is illegal. It's considered export of that data. And if MS (EU) are asked to do something on the order of a US court, they are legally obliged to ignore it.

      It's not as big, or as rare, an issue as some places like to make out. Such orders happen. And then they are ignored. SpamHaus was one particular example where they stupidly responded in the positive to a US court order (initially, at least), but still they got out of actually having to do anything about it as it was outside the US jurisdiction. US courts issue orders that are unenforcable all the time. The actual fact is that if they want them to be legal, there is a process - apply to the EU court to enforce the US court order. That happens too. And when that happens, the EU law is read and applies and it's then legal to do so.

      It's not legal for anyone to have any part in letting EU data go out of the EU without suitable data protection. Even the air-travel data sharing scheme fell apart as soon as the EU was no longer co-operative because - by default - it's not legal.

      That's not saying it couldn't happen. But Microsoft (US) can tell Microsoft (EU) whatever it likes. If Microsoft (EU) complies or allows it, it's potentially broken EU law. The consequences otherwise don't bear thinking about (e.g. Apple applying US consumer law to other countries, etc. and getting out of their two-year required warranty program...)

      All the smart lawyers in the world can't make US law apply anywhere else without breaking the law in "anywhere else". That's part of the reason why Assange is still on UK soil, and why Apple are selling useless "extended" support warranties in the EU.

      3 0 Reply
  2. Armitage
    FAIL

    Suuure

    "Opening the data centre, Amazon stressed data privacy, saying customers’ content can now fall entirely under the umbrella of European Union data protection laws and outside the reach of United States regulations like the Patriot Act."

    See how well this holds up since Amazon is an American company required by law to cooperate with the patriot act -_-

    We've already got the case going on where the gov.us have demanded Microsoft to give access to data stored in Ireland since under the United State's eyes, the American arm of the company has access to the data regardless of where the data is and the laws protecting it

    6 0 Reply
    1. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Suuure

      "We've already got the case going on where the gov.us have demanded Microsoft to give access to data stored in Ireland "

      Not quite. If the PATRIOT act had been invoked, MS would have handed everything over without a word of dissent.

      The case in question is important for other reasons.

      I fail to see how Amazon EU will fall outside of the Patriot act, short of removing ALL business operations from the USA (Even having a subsidiary company or a single office in the USA is enough to make a EU outfit fall under its jurisdiction)

      6 0 Reply
      1. tempemeaty
        Reply Icon
        Big Brother

        Re: Suuure

        My next predicted move for major corporations in America is that they will start relocating every part of their operations they can offshore to escape the US Gov's corrupt data grabbing hands. We will begin to find their Executive offices/Home office, HR, Accounting and such turning up in Europe or even Dubai.

        0 0 Reply
  3. qwertyuiop
    FAIL

    US will still get your data

    "...requests for data from the US authorities had to be legally binding – via court order – and couldn’t be over-reaching"

    I can't help but think this is either very naive or deliberately deceptive. The datacentre may well be in Europe but Amazon is a US company and, as we know from the Microsoft ruling, the US courts regard data as being within the scope of a court order irrespective of where it is physically held. Unless and until Microsoft win their case it's largely immaterial where your data is held.

    8 0 Reply
    1. Nate Amsden
      Reply Icon

      Re: US will still get your data

      Even if they do win, the threat of having future rulings overturned etc will probably always be there. So if your concerned about such a thing, no point in even considering such a cloud company. You can encrypt a lot of your data, but obviously most active data has to be in a decrypted state in some form to be read(I suppose one exception is if your doing nothing but storing and retrieving encrypted data and decrypting it off of the cloud for reading -- in which case this new data center buys you nothing new from a security standpoint)

      2 0 Reply
  4. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Amazon has an American legal attack surface greater than zero. They thus cannot be trusted to protect your data. End of line.

    9 0 Reply
  5. Arachnoid

    Access......

    Didn't a US spokesperson recently release a statement that basically said servers outside the US were fair game to hacking by them as they are not covered by US laws..........

    4 0 Reply
  6. I am a machine (says Turing test)

    Sure

    You forgot "Yeah, right" in the title.

    1 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mchauhan

    But still a US head quartered office..

    0 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You sure its not subject to the Patriot Act?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/23/microsoft_vs_the_long_arm_of_us_law/

    One of the articles on your site less than a month old says it probably is (at least once the court case has run for many years)

    1 0 Reply
  9. I'm counting

    A German Data Center you say.

    It should come as no surprise that there would be even less trust if it was built in the UK. Not to mention that it may not even come under European law in a couple of years.

    5 1 Reply
  10. Carbon life unit 5,232,556

    Any US connection at all...

    is enough for US plod to claim jurisdiction, let alone being owned by US corp.

    0 0 Reply
  11. The_Idiot

    Interesting. It might be...

    ... a later edit, but I can see a number of quotes of a section here that appear to be missing one word from the article as it currently stands:

    .

    "customers’ content can now fall entirely under the umbrella of European Union data protection laws and outside the reach of some United States regulations."

    .

    'some'. Outside the reach of 'some' United States regulations. like, um, the ones regulating the marsh content in marsh mallows, perhaps? I mean, sure. Subject to, um, certain other, er, purely trivial regs. But we're good on that marsh mallow thing, right? Sigh...

    3 0 Reply
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'AMAZON OPENS POSSIBLY NSA-PROOF GERMAN CLOUD'

    'Possibly'??? Looks like someones trying to cover his or hers arse there!

    0 0 Reply
  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This appears to be a very expensive PR trick to make people think their services are safe from US government interference, which everyone knows is not actually the case. A sure sign of how much damage is still being done to US hosting services through lack of trust.

    Just a toss up if those IT directors think they can get away without any whining about privacy before they accept those free holidays and other goodies that come along with signing up a big contract. What is best for the company then tends to go out the window.

    1 0 Reply
  14. dan1980

    ". . . outside the reach of some United States regulations."

    No doubt, but I think it's rather relevant exactly which US regulations you will be protected from.

    Some how I don't think Amazon De customers will be worried about Section 3050.26 of Title 39, requiring the "documentation of demand elasticities and volume forecasts" by the US Postal Service.

    As others above have noted, you need only look to parallel article on this very site about Microsoft's battle with the US around data privacy in exactly this situation.

    The US government certainly believes that any data stored by a US company anywhere in the world is ripe for their picking.

    1 0 Reply
  15. Pen-y-gors

    Stuff the law

    "unless required to comply with the law or requests of governmental entities."

    So that means legal requests (court orders etc) or ANY request from a government entity (legal or illegal). And does a 'government entity' include the duly-elected dog-catcher of Little Rock or the Widdicombe-on-the-Moor parish council?

    0 0 Reply
  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "entirely under the umbrella of European Union data protection laws and outside the reach of some United States regulations."

    Easily fixed: new EU rule needed. Data centre equipment falling within the physical territory of EU member states is subject solely the legal jurisdiction of those member states, and any court outside the EU claiming jurisdiction is itself - the court, and it's officers as individuals - commits an offence by authorising anything else.

    :-)

    0 0 Reply

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