Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO and Microsoft Collude to Break the Law -- Part II: Steve Rowan Announces Microsoft “Outlook Migration”



Previous parts:



Steve Rowan - Vice President DG1 - Patent Granting Process
Steve Rowan – passionate about "talking the talk".



Summary: Steve Rowan on the implementation of illegal surveillance by Microsoft and the United States, covering all EPO operations including strictly confidential communications

Steve Rowan moved to the EPO in 2019 (warning: epo.org link). Prior to that he had held the position Director of Patents, Trade Marks, Designs and Tribunals at the UKIPO.



Steve was recruited by Campinos as part of a drive to give the EPO's senior management team a "new look" and as part of a carefully orchestrated attempt to create a "perception of independence" from Team Battistelli which had fallen into public disrepute.

Since then this affable and garrulous Welshman has been busy doing the rounds, "talking the talk" and pressing the flesh in an effort to convince EPO staff that everything has changed for the better.

When listening to him you could be forgiven for coming away with the impression that it's all one big happy family now and that the unpleasantness of the Battistelli era has been consigned once and for all to the dustbin of history – even if Elodie Bergot is still running the show at the HR Department.

Steve has taken to his new role like a duck to water and he seems to enjoy playing the EPO's "Prince of Woke", sponsoring events such as the “Women in the Lead” programme - a mentoring initiative for women at the EPO aspiring to managerial roles - and various other worthy "diversity & inclusion" causes.

More recently, at the start of February, Steve issued a communiqué to EPO staff on the subject of "Outlook Migration to the Cloud". This communiqué is noteworthy because it confirms the EPO's increasing reliance on cloud computing services hosted by Microsoft.

In his communiqué Steve informed EPO staff that "as announced in previous intranet items published in May and December 2020, our Outlook mailboxes are being transferred to the cloud."

But when reading the full text of the communiqué it's impossible not to wonder whether Steve fully understands the P's and Q's of data protection and the potential risks associated with putting all of the EPO's precious data eggs into the Microsoft basket:

"With the help of contract terms, a data protection agreement and technical implementation, the EPO has ensured the best possible protection for the data stored using Microsoft's cloud services. Microsoft guarantees that the data itself is stored on EU servers within the jurisdiction of the European data protection rules (GDPR).

Under the US Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) and the US Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act), Microsoft is obliged to grant security and intelligence agencies access to data stored in its cloud, even when stored on EU servers.

However, the protection level offered by Microsoft is still sufficiently high for DG 1 processes in place for confidential data exchange not to need encryption.

By contrast, to comply with the highest standards, which of course include the requirements imposed under the GDPR, encryption is needed for strictly confidential data.

The guidance on the use of cloud tools therefore states that it is only strictly confidential data that must not be stored in plain form in the cloud, whereas merely confidential information can be stored there without limitations."


Cloud fantasy
Is EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan living in a data protection "cloud-cuckoo land"?



Steve's blind faith in Microsoft and its assurances is very touching but one wonders whether he realises the full ramifications of handing over the EPO's internal e-mail and video-conference communications to a US-based electronic communications services provider.

Quite bizarrely, he doesn't seem to bat an eyelid over the fact that "Microsoft is obliged to grant security and intelligence agencies access to data stored in its cloud, even when stored on EU servers".

Despite the gushing optimism of the EPO Vice-President, there remains a nagging suspicion in some quarters that the EPO's increasing reliance on Microsoft - in particular its cloud computing services - is a legitimate source of public concern.

Before looking into this in more detail we will make a detour into the subject of mass surveillance and "digital sovereignty".

This planned intermezzo is intended to assist the reader in making a fully informed judgment as to whether everything is really as fine and dandy as Steve would have us believe or whether - as some suspect - he is living in a data protection "cloud-cuckoo land"…

Recent Techrights' Posts

Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year