Experts react to Google's Brexit-driven decision to move UK data to the US - Business Insider

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Google's decision to shift control of UK user data to the US looks like a calculated political bet that Brexit will be a privacy disaster

Reuters reported Wednesday that Google is planning to ship its UK user data from its European headquarters in Ireland to the US.Experts told Business Insider the problem boils down to whether the UK can obtain an "adequacy agreement" with the EU which would guarantee that EU citizens' data would be protected with the same rigor as under GDPR.

This isn't immediately a big deal for user privacy. UK users remain protected by Europe's strict privacy rules for now, even if their data is legally owned by a US entity. It does, however, raise the specter of reduced privacy in future if a post-Brexit UK alters its laws to become less privacy-oriented.

Originally Britain maintained that it would seek the second option, otherwise known as an "adequacy agreement," with the EU. This would mean Europe accepts that the UK provides data protection that's up to the EU's standards. "Furthermore, by remaining in Ireland, Google risks double-jeopardy for fines and other sanctions in relation to any breach of data protection affecting those in the UK, as it would be a breach of both EU law and UK law . Moving its contractual body to the US would somewhat remedy this," he added.

 

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Google has no moral, its business for them. ty brexiteers, great job.

Already getting off Google... it’s gonna be painful... but how very dare they...

More a calculated bet that the UK will increasingly shift its data protection, transfer, hosting and processing regime towards the US as part of a trade deal and a move away from EU regs. Given that 80% of UK cloud data is hosted in Europe *that* would be the disaster.

SAI 1+1=40 WTF?

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