Cross-border data access helps companies meet privacy and regulatory obligations

As calls increase for Canada to establish a bilateral agreement with the U.S. that would streamline police access to data across the border, Molly Reynolds says these types of agreements create certainty for tech companies.

Canadian innovation publication The Logic wrote about the lack of agreement between the Canada and the U.S., despite the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act being passed in the U.S. in 2018. The CLOUD Act allows U.S. law enforcement agencies to obtain the information of American citizens from servers located outside the U.S., provided the host country has signed an agreement to share data with the U.S.

Molly penned an analysis of the CLOUD Act when it was enacted in 2018. 

The Logic article says tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft support the law, and Molly reinforced this sentiment, saying a bilateral agreement like this creates certainty for these types of companies.

“It’s much easier for them to meet their domestic privacy and regulatory obligations when they see their own government having approved [the request process],” Molly said.

“A bilateral agreement would not provide rights to U.S. law enforcement that they didn’t have under other regimes”