international business
Restrictions on international data storage?
<p>Firstly, I apologize for any brevity in my question and description.  I'm under a NDA and can't really give out specifics.</p>

<p>A company in the Netherlands is saying that it would not be lawful for them to locate their primary data storage (specifically, supplier and part information) internationally in the United States, underneath a parent company.  From all of my research I have not been able to find any evidence that this would be illegal.</p>

<p>Would anybody be able to give any advice on this?</p>

<p><em>I am not a lawyer; I am not <strong>your</strong> lawyer.</em></p>

<p>I may have some of the terminology wrong, and I haven't researched specific statutes or sections, but I recall an interesting interaction between the USA PATRIOT Act and EU/Dutch Data Storage Laws.<sup>1</sup></p>

<p>EU Data Storage Statutes and Regulations generally require that owners of data (that is, those to whom the data refers, or those who the data identifies) are notified of access to the data by a third party.</p>

<p>However, the USA PATRIOT Act contains requirements for the provision of data to law enforcement agencies, <em>without</em> notifying the owners.</p>

<p>This conflict is a likely reason for the company being unable to locate data in the United States.</p>

<p>As mentioned, there could (also) be contractual obligations that prevent them from doing so.</p>

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1. I'll put this link here though, because my quick-and-dirty answer has yielded this article: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/01/02/can-european-firms-legally-use-u-s-clouds-to-store-data/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/01/02/can-european-firms-legally-use-u-s-clouds-to-store-data/</a>
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