Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice over its requests to access customer data stored in the
Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice over itsrequests to access customer data stored in thecloud, expanding the fight between US technologycompanies and Washington over privacy concerns.
Microsoft’s lawsuit takes aim at the DoJ’s practice ofissuing “secrecy orders” that ban Microsoft fromtelling customers when their information is beingaccessed by the government. It names Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney General, as adefendant.
Microsoft says this practice, which is legal under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,violates its customers’ Fourth Amendment right to know when they are being searched andviolates Microsoft’s First Amendment right to speak about these investigations.
“People do not give up their rights when they move their private information from physicalstorage to the cloud,” the lawsuit states. The DoJ did not immediately respond to a requestfor comment.
The lawsuit comes at a time of growing public debate over how the US government should beable to access electronic records. Apple fought the FBI’s demand for special software to accessthe iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists, until the FBI found another way to unlockthe device.
Microsoft said the practice of issuing search warrants with secrecy orders had become morecommon as more customers move to cloud computing. “The government . . . has exploited thetransition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secretinvestigations,” the filing said.
Over the past 18 months, courts have issued more than 5,000 demands for customerinformation to Microsoft, around half of which contain secrecy orders. Of those, two-thirdshave no fixed end-date, meaning that a user might never find out their information had beensearched.