The US CLOUD Act
What is the US CLOUD Act?
The U.S. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, enacted in 2018, gives U.S. law enforcement authorities the power to demand access to data held by any company under U.S. jurisdiction, even if the data is stored outside the United States.
This means companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple may be required to hand over data stored in European data centers — without notifying the data owner.
Why It Matters
For organizations in the EU, this introduces legal, privacy, and compliance risks:
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Potential violation of GDPR if data is disclosed without proper safeguards
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Loss of control over sensitive information
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Incompatibility with regulatory requirements
Even when data appears to be “hosted in Europe,” the ownership of the provider matters just as much as the physical location.
How We Help
At Aginion, we take a European-first, sovereignty-conscious approach to data hosting and service delivery:
| CLOUD Act Risk | Our Mitigation Strategy |
|---|---|
| US Jurisdiction Exposure | We avoid U.S.-owned infrastructure providers by default |
| Legal Access to Data | Your data is stored in privately-managed servers under EU jurisdiction only |
| Regulatory Compliance | We help ensure that your data remains GDPR/DORA-compliant and outside the scope of U.S. surveillance laws |
| Private Cloud Hosting | We operate our own infrastructure, with full control over network, storage, and access |
| Transparency and Contracts | We provide written guarantees of data location and access control in our SoWs and SLAs |
If your business has concerns about confidentiality, cross-border compliance, or data leakage, we offer a clear, safe alternative to public cloud environments.