German regulator says using Amazon Web Services to store police data risks US espionage

News Broadband Germany 11 APR 2019
German regulator says using Amazon Web Services to store police data risks US espionage
Ulrich Kelber, Germany's federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, said that US authority could use the Cloud Act to access data from Amazon Web Service, breaching domestic data protection laws, Politico reports.   

Germany plans to equip federal police with Motorola devices that record what they see on the job. Data are then uploaded on Amazon Web Services, the cloud business of Amazon. Currently, 285 such bodycams are already in use. There is a risk of spying and violating data protection laws in Germany, if US authorities invoke the Cloud Act to gain access to the police recordings, said Kelber.

The commissioner added that a cloud provider subject to European data protection law would provide better protection for the storage of sensitive data, instead of a provider that is subject to the Cloud Act.  

Amazon did not comment. A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry said that AWS "is the only suitable cloud provider because Motorola software cannot be used on any other cloud infrastructure without significant modifications".

Categories:

Internet

Companies:

Motorola Solutions,  Amazon Web Services

Countries:

Germany

Tags:

Security, Devices, Hosting - cloud - data centres, Government policy, Legislation - Lawsuits

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