Microsoft is delivering its cloud services from two new data centers in Germany, in a move that aims to deflect customer concerns about access to their data by U.S. surveillance.
Microsoft sets up data centers in Germany amid US surveillance concerns

Mark

On the one hand that's good but on the other the actual benefit hinges on the outcome of that trial about access by US authorities to data held IIRC in Ireland.

Yeah, but the Patriot Act trumps that, or so the USA like to think, and Microsoft being an American company is subject to that law. I guess we’ll see it tested in court somewhere along the way.

It's already in court. IIRC the FBI or another US agency has demanded that MS hand over e-mails for Outlook/Hotmail of an Irish person. The e-mails are in Ireland and rather than asking the Irish Government to issue a warrant to obtain the information then send it to the US the US have demanded MS just hand it over directly.

Linky

You beat me to it.

I expected you to be all over it, yes.

As I've always said, if the FBI march into a MS executive's office and say 'give us the data or you're going to jail', it doesn't matter where the data centre is. If that executive is the boss of someone who is the boss of someone who is the boss of someone (etc) who can get access to the data then the FBI will get access to the data, because no US exec is going to put the potential risk of being prosecuted in the EU ahead of the reality of going to jail in their home country.

The only way this will work is if MS subcontracted the whole deal to an EU company and there was no chain of command at all between the two. And they could have already done that if they'd wanted to.