February 3, 2017, US Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter ruled that Google must provide emails stored overseas to US authorities for domestic investigations.
On August 2016, courts issued two search warrants, which required Google to disclose, to the FBI, electronic data held in the accounts of the two accused of fraud in violation of federal law. Google only provided data stored on its US servers, based on Microsoft Corp v. USA defense.
Google regularly transfers user data from one data center to another, on a global scale, to optimize for performance, reliability and other efficiencies.
Prior to this ruling, emails stored in foreign servers were beyond the jurisdiction of American authorities. Google plans to appeal this decision, on the basis that “this case departed from precedent”.
Google receives 25,000 annual requests for user data from US authorities. Intelligence agencies continue to apply pressure on service and cloud providers to cooperate in mass surveillance.
The Counteraction
CloudMask intercepts and masks your data before handing it over to Google, without disrupting the performance of the application (Gmail or Drive). Google receives only meaningless data. Only you and the parties you explicitly trust can access your data in clear: 26 leading cyber security agencies validate these claims.
In the case of national security letters, Google can only disclose the random tokens that have replaced your sensitive data.
With CloudMask, only your authorized parties can decrypt and see your data. Not hackers with your valid password, Not Cloud Providers, Not Government Agencies, and Not even CloudMask can see your protected data. Twenty-six government cybersecurity agencies around the world back these claims.
Watch our video and demo at www.vimeo.com/cloudmask
