Google to revoke EU data protection from UK users

One of the side-effects of Brexit is UK citizens will no longer be under the protection of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

An exclusive Reuters report claims Google will be moving all of the data it has on UK citizens out of Ireland, which will remain in the EU, and into a yet undisclosed location, under the jurisdiction of the United States.

Google decided to move the data out of Ireland because it's not certain the UK will continue to adhere to GDPR after Brexit, or whether it will instead create new data protection rules.

Sitting within US jurisdiction means UK data would be under the protection of the Cloud Act, which would make it much easier for law enforcement agencies to obtain information if they so wished.

Google is yet to comment on the news.

For Lea Kissner, Google’s former Global Lead for Privacy Technology, this was a logical move.

“There’s a bunch of noise about the UK government possibly trading away enough data protection to lose adequacy under GDPR, at which point having them in Google Ireland’s scope sounds super-messy,” Kissner said.

“Never discount the desire of tech companies not be caught in between two different governments.”

Google could very well be the first in series of US companies to introduce measures of this kind.

source itproportal

Industry: Cyber Security