A federal court has ruled that Microsoft is required to turn over the contents of people's emails to the U.S. government even if the data is stored in a server in Ireland.
The decision, which has been criticized by privacy advocates, essentially gives authorities access to servers in overseas locations.
Microsoft led a challenge against the government's seizure of customer data stored in other countries. The case, which disputed a criminal search warrant, was heard in a New York district court. After a two hour long hearing, Judge Loretta Preska said that Microsoft must comply with the warrant, adding that the company must surrender data to authorities no matter where it is stored.
"It is a question of control, not a question of the location of that information," Judge Preska said.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, told Reuters that his company will appeal the decision. "The only issue that was certain this morning was that the district court's decision would not represent the final step in this process," Smith said.
Preska has suspended the enforcement of her verdict to give Microsoft time to mount an appeal. The case is eventually expected to land in the 2nd U.S. District Court of Appeals.
The emails in question belong to an unnamed MSN email user. Last April, a magistrate judge ordered Microsoft to turn over the customer's data. That decision was upheld with Preska's ruling. The country where the customer lived was not revealed, however, the investigation was said to have involved drug charges.
Microsoft was supported by other technology firms in its legal challenge against the criminal search warrant. Cisco, Apple, AT&T and Verizon all submitted briefs in support of Microsoft. Privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation also filed an amicus brief. Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at EFF, told Computerworld that he was not surprised by Judge Preska's ruling. He said that it is difficult to convince a district judge to overturn a magistrate's decision. However, he added that the decision basically rewrote the Stored Communications Act because it failed to recognize the limitations of the word "warrant."
Tech companies fear that giving U.S. authorities the power to reach into servers abroad may weaken trust from customers and hurt their competitiveness. There are already cases where American tech firms have been targeted due to security concerns. Recently, Chinese authorities banned Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system from government computers due to spying fears from American intelligence agencies.
