Microsoft says that it has accomplished a multi-year undertaking to permit Europe-based clients utilizing its cloud companies to retailer and course of knowledge within the EU.

The undertaking, the EU Information Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud, started in January 2023, went on for two more years, and eventually wrapped up this February, Microsoft said. With its completion, European clients can retailer and course of knowledge for Microsoft core cloud companies, together with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Energy Platform, and most Azure companies, throughout the EU and European Free Commerce Affiliation areas (EFTA).

A rising variety of tech giants and cloud suppliers supply European knowledge residency packages alongside the traces of the EU Information Boundary. These assist clients adjust to European native privateness and knowledge safety legal guidelines just like the GDPR, Germany’s Federal Information Safety Act, and the U.Okay.’s knowledge safety laws. Information residency refers back to the bodily location of a corporation’s knowledge, in addition to the native legal guidelines and coverage necessities imposed on that knowledge.

In response to Microsoft, for cloud companies supported by the EU Information Boundary, buyer knowledge and “pseudonymized” private knowledge are saved and processed in datacenters situated in international locations throughout the EU or EFTA. “Skilled companies knowledge,” which incorporates knowledge that’s supplied to Microsoft, like sure log knowledge, is saved at relaxation.

Microsoft notes that, for particular Azure companies, clients might must get hold of knowledgeable companies knowledge storage dedication. This page outlines the necessities.

EU regulators have spent years flagging concerns about how Microsoft processes the data of users of its cloud services, together with in relation to the authorized foundation Microsoft claims for processing knowledge and an absence of readability within the wording of its cloud companies contracts. To be truthful, Microsoft isn’t the one goal. In Could 2023, Meta was fined $1.3 billion by Eire’s knowledge privateness watchdog over knowledge transfers to the U.S.

In July 2023, the EU and U.S. agreed on a brand new “Information Privateness Framework,” permitting knowledge transfers so long as specific privateness ensures and protections have been made. Microsoft nonetheless last year announced plans to maintain all European cloud clients’ private knowledge throughout the EU.