Behold the might of dynamic crimefighting duo Captain Met Police and the Microsoft Kid Lucky London plod have been gently nudged down the Microsoft 365 staircase with the cloudy platform rolled out to Metropolitan Police employees. In news that will leave criminals positively paralysed with fear, Microsoft and the Metropolitan Police Service have buddied up to tackle London crime. By "buddied up" we mean that …
"Your US-based vendor is open to demands from US authorities."
Historically Microsoft have been willing to go to court against the US government in order to not hand over information.
They're also subject to random checks by the Crown Commercial Service to make sure they're storing UK government data correctly.
But hey, micro$oft bad, right?
"Historically Microsoft have been willing to go to court against the US government in order to not hand over information."
Indeed they did and good for them. So the US invented the CLOUD Act to get round all that. You'd think that Microsoft would have been opposed to it wouldn't you? No, they welcomed it.
A quick check: a Chinese company, say Huawei, storing US gov. data - is that OK?
"They're also subject to random checks by the Crown Commercial Service to make sure they're storing UK government data correctly."
And if a foreign government has the right to order the supplier to hand over data you'd think that that wouldn't pass as correct? Clearly not.
Whilst you may have a point in theory, in practice this is a very different scenario to where those concerns lie.
There are multiple aspects here that would work against the US government trying to use those kinds of processes to access the data. This is the police, not an individual or corporation.
What justification are they going to use for making the request in the first place? Are they going to accuse the police force of an allied nation of committing crimes against and within the jurisdiction of the US? They can use such suspicion to argue that they need evidence against normal people, but merely making such an accusation against the UK police is going to cause a MAJOR diplomatic incident.
Additionally, this is sensitive law enforcement data, not personal data. You can argue that personal data can be demanded as evidence, and that is where the jurisdiction argument comes up... however demanding that police disclose information on law enforcement activities is a totally different matter.
US companies can not be compelled to violate laws in foreign countries. The intention of the cloud act is that countries can make agreements permitting US courts to request data stored by US citizens within their jurisdiction, or US companies can add provisions to their terms and conditions whereby the user grants permission to disclose the data. It does not apply where disclosure is unlawful in the country the data is stored in (as it would be in this case), and it also only applies to data stored for US citizens. Last time I checked, the Met didn't have US citizenship.
If a US citizen is employed by the met, and using their police email account to coordinate their US crime syndicate, the cloud act might be relevant... however the contract the police have with Microsoft almost certainly would not permit the disclosure. I also suspect that such an investigation would involve some senior officers from the UK being actively involved using existing cross border law enforcement processes...
The US will easily justify access to the data, data on many criminals and all those fingerprints, faces etc etc (much of it of course illegally held but the police have a habit of holding on to data even when told to get rid of it)
The US will just say that it is possible that one of those people might be tied up with a crime in the US and they will gain access.
Even better for the CIA etc. given that they have acceess to the data they can ensure any data about their people in the UK mysteriously disappears or gets altered a little
> ...aspects here that would work against the US government trying to use those kinds of processes to access the data...
I think you misunderstand. The US Gov. wouldn't be asking the Met., they'd ask Microsoft, who as a US company under US law would be be obliged to comply - and probably would be forbidden from notifying the Met.
Anyone moving to 365 is a real non-story. The licensing terms and MS practices make it inevitable. You go 365 or you use something like Libra Office or Lotus Notes.
A large government department moving to Libra Office would be a big story.
Just wait 2-3 years until MS decides it's going to fuck everyone over on licensing renewals. We're already expecting it but we're too deep into the MS shitpile to avoid now or dig our way out later.
"Technology gives our evidence greater integrity and gives us greater legitimacy."
No you retard.
Having a proper chain of custody gives your evidence the integrity needed. Legitimacy doesn't enter the equation, that's determined by the courts.
Now that you have moved away from established systems and processes ( that have been interrogated in varying levels in courts). You have now opened up a whole new area that defence solicitors can start poking holes.
I wonder how much of a better, more secure, more usable and more stable system they could have achieved by paying that money to a bunch of UK software engineers?
The cloud means being tied to the whims and prices of the suppliers, not being able to retrieve your information (lost a load of emails when tesco pulled the plug on their email service because the mails didnt all come across as promissed), really stuffed having stupidly signed up to gmail where I cant change my email information, export or apparently cancel the contract...
Besides our government should not be sharing our information with other governments, particularly not hostile ones like the yanks (Trump in partlcular... I wonder, who blew up the tanker and posed for the video... why is it I suspect the Americans more than the Iranians?). Anyone who believes the NSA isnt able to read everything and anything on any of the cloud services... Microsoft, Amazon etc etc is just barking mad.
Last month on a fraud investigation the PC asked me how to copy cells in a spreadsheet to a word document.
Thousands stolen, PC was guven name and room number of hotel fraudster was staying, her phone number and WhatsApp picture (she had ordered takeaways) but didn't make an arrest. Took 2 days before they would even agree to record a crime. (As Victim was technically Metro bank not the cancer victim whose funds were frozen).
Don't really blame the police, they risk their lives for us, but is depressing.
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