Keeping your data in Canada won’t necessarily keep it safe from the prying eyes of the U.S. government. That was the message lawyer David Fraser took to a recent Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) teleconference aiming to get the Canadian government to clarify its position on outsourcing data.
RELATED STORY: Don’t fear the Patriot Act
According to a report from IT World Canada, Fraser, a partner with the Halifax firm of McInnes Cooper who specializes in cloud computing, said the Patriot Act has become something of a “bogey man” and the fact is, if U.S. authorities want your data, even in Canada, they have other ways of getting it“
“Data sovereignty is a bit of an illusion because we’re so interconnected (with law enforcement agencies) and there’s so much data sharing taking place,” said Fraser.
International law aside, Fraser advises the government can take a number of policy steps to mitigate the risk, such as data encryption and contractual provisions.
Halifax lawyer David Fraser called the U.S. Patriot Act a “bogeyman.”
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