Microsoft in court over federal prosecutors demand for data stored outside US

Microsoft has questioned the federal prosecutors' authority to force the company to hand over a customer's email stored in a data centre in Ireland.

The objection comes as the first instance of a corporation challenging a domestic search warrant seeking digital information overseas.

The case has drawn the attention of privacy groups and major US technology companies, that have already been under pressure from foreign governments concerned that the  personal data of their citizens was not adequately protected in the data centres of US companies.

A brief filed by Verizon on Tuesday echoed similar objections and more corporations are expected to join. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been working on a brief supporting Microsoft, even as European officials expressed alarm.

Microsoft said in a court filing made public Monday, that if the judicial order to surrender the email stored abroad was upheld, it would  ''would violate international law and treaties, and reduce the privacy protection of everyone on the planet.''

In a filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the software giant had raised objections to a magistrate judge's warrant issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as it sought to authorise the US government to search ''any and all'' of Microsoft's facilities worldwide.

US magistrate judge James C Francis IV of the New York court had, in April, refused to quash a December warrant authorising the search and seizure of information, including content and identifiers such as name and physical address,  pertaining to a specific web-based email account stored at Microsoft's premises.

Though Microsoft provided non-content information held on its US servers, after  determining that the account along with account content was hosted in Dublin, it filed for quashing the warrant as compliance would require the information held abroad to be produced.

According to the magistrate's order if territorial restrictions on conventional warrants were to apply to warrants issued under section 2703 (a) of the Stored Communications Act, the burden on the government would be substantial, and law enforcement efforts would be seriously impeded.

Disclosure of wire or electronic communications disclosure is required under the statute.

Microsoft has called for reform of surveillance by the US National Security Agency, stating that its business abroad was being impacted.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote last week that it was concerned about government attempts to use search warrants to force companies to turn over contents of communications of non-US customers that were stored exclusively outside the country.