The CLOUD Act: Analysis and Criticisms

This article first published in the IAPP’s Daily Dashboard.

The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act in the United States is the latest attempt to resolve the question of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act's extraterritorial reach. It aims to amend “the Stored Communications Act to specifically authorize a government entity to compel a U.S. provider that stores customer communications ... to turn over the content of those communications when stored in another country,” Christin McMeley, CIPP/US, and John Seiver of Davis Wright Tremaine write in this analysis of the bill for Privacy Tracker. The CLOUD Act has bipartisan support and the support of the tech industry; however, criticism and questions remain, like whether it would meet the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

Read the full analysis here.