[FFII] A license to spy ; cross-border data flows in TTIP

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Here is a quote from Harry van Dorenmalen of IBM Europe: “Data flows and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will be high on the agenda at the Summit. TTIP offers a unique opportunity to set the example as a 21st Century trade agreement that supports cross border data flow provisions…” […]

The data flow debate relates to the recent surveillance scandals, and the post-snowden world. Having your data on European servers won’t help against criminal actions of partner countries. What it does achieve is data governance by your jurisdiction and preventing undesirable lawful access of a foreign government – as in the SWIFT scandal. There the US government dared to spy on the most toxic European data you could imagine, financial and stock market transaction data collected by the SWIFT processing agency, data mirrored on US servers. […]

With fearmongering about “data separatism”, “fragmentation” of the internet, building on the old “free flow” ideals of the internet technologist community and European mainstream narratives of free cross-border exchange of goods and services the transatlantic free data flow agenda pursues a devilish assault on the privacy and freedoms of European citizens and nation states in the digital world.

http://acta.ffii.org/?p=2189