Alerts3.27.26
Beyond the Server Location: Why the New Fight Over FISA 702 and the Cloud Act Matters to Corporate Privacy Strategy
Highlights
- Data location is no longer the whole story. Even where data is stored abroad, U.S. legal authorities tied to provider jurisdiction, access, and control can still create meaningful compelled-access and surveillance risk.
- Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA 702) is now a mainstream corporate governance issue. The current reauthorization debate, coupled with proposed reforms like the SAFE Act, has direct implications for vendor diligence, cross-border transfers, AI governance, and internal data-minimization strategy.
- In-house counsel should prepare for more scrutiny, not less. Companies should revisit transfer assessments, cloud contracting, provider diligence, and internal response protocols now, particularly where sensitive data, centralized cloud environments, or AI-enabled analytics are involved.
For years, many companies saw foreign-intelligence surveillance law as a problem for governments, telecom carriers, and a small set of hyperscale infrastructure providers. That view is no longer tenable.
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