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EU unsatisfied over US reasoning for secretive Yahoo data access court order

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

January 12, 2017 | 3 min read

The United States intelligence sector is coming under European criticism over its historic access to the email servers at Yahoo (which is soon to rebrand as Altaba).

Yahoo

Yahoo is a source of concern for the EU Commission

EU justice commissioner Vera Jourova told Reuters that the European Commission demanded of the US the detailing of a secret court order served to Yahoo that reportedly enabled it to scan incoming user emails for intel.

Earlier this week the Commission laid out a groundwork for updated data protection legislation which effectively brings internet messaging services like Gmail, Yahoo Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more into line with user privacy laws currently adhered to by telecom firms. It also gave the greenlight to adblocking – and the tracking of such programs.

As the Commission closes the door on access to member state citizen data, Jourova said: “I am not satisfied, because to my taste, the answer came relatively late and relatively general, and I will make clear at the first possible opportunity to the American side that this is not how we understand good, quick, and full exchange of information.”

The investigation comes on the back of the EU-US Privacy Shield agreement. In it the US agreed not to partake in industrial level surveillance of EU citizens.

The alleged Yahoo email scanning took place before the agreement was signed in July 2015 but the case is being used to benchmark the US’s commitment to the Privacy Shield. Under the agreement, businesses were allowed to move EU citizen data to US databanks under the protection of the deal.

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