A factual and legally grounded analysis of 18 U.S.C. § 2713 and its impact on European hosted data.
Enacted in March 2018, the CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2713) allows US law enforcement and federal agencies to compel US technology providers to disclose data under their possession, regardless of where that data is physically stored worldwide.
There is a widespread misconception that choosing an EU data center location (e.g., Frankfurt or Paris) with a US provider like Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud isolates your data from US jurisdiction.
Legally, this protection does not exist: the CLOUD Act applies based on the corporate nationality of the parent company, not the physical location of the server. If the parent company is US-based, US courts can order it to turn over data stored in Europe.
Under Article 48 of the EU GDPR, foreign court orders requiring the transfer of personal data are not recognized unless grounded in an international mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT). Complying with a CLOUD Act warrant directly violates GDPR.
Cloudiou operates on a 100% European model built to nullify extraterritorial risk:
