   Reasons to not host website in America?
  I am looking for some new hosting and I found a real good company but they only have data centres in America.I am looking to use this for business and I will have a database with lots of customer details.At my old job I had some head security guy come in and he was going on, I was falling asleep, but I remember him saying that a UK business should not store details like that on an American server. I can't even remember what his reasons were.I have my own personal website hosted on an American server but that doesn't contain personal details.So are there reasons why I shouldn't go with this American based host? I would like to hear what people in the know from the UK think and get some advice.Thanks   
  My guess is that if you are hosting the stuff on an American server, the American government can gain access to that stuff through the Patriot Act or a warrant.This is as opposed to the British government, which would probably just do whatever the Americans asked for anyway.   ;  Yeah that was it, do you think that is even a real problem to worry about? I do remember the guy saying we needed to change all our hosting over to European because of this.I could just mention it in the terms of the site?   ;  Unless I miss my guess, UK privacy laws make US privacy laws look downright circumspect in comparison. Don't your police not even need arrest warrants anymore? I really wouldn't worry about it unless you're doing stuff like handling investments or medical records.   ;Quote:Original post by RavuyaThis is as opposed to the British government, which would probably just do whatever the Americans asked for anyway.[grin]It's usually not so much about the government (although some EU governments actively discourage their local companies from storing sensitive data, such as R&D that has not yet been patented, in the US). It's more about US law being much more lenient about what private companies can do with private data. Most EU countries are extremely restrictive about this, going as far as even restricting the company-internal use of customer data without explicit consent. In the US, personal data can be sold to third parties, and can be used to perform things that are not connected to a direct business relationship with the customer (eg. data mining).Details vary by US state and EU country. No idea how it is in the UK.;  Storing data in the US may have Data Protection (as in Data Protection Act) implications.  Specifically, principle 8 of the act statesQuote:Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.Wikipedia has more info about the act here;Quote:Original post by MonderWikipedia has more info about the act hereUhm, wait a second:Quote:    * Section 28 - National security. Any processing for the purpose of safeguarding national security are exempt from all the data protection principles, as well as Part II (subject access rights), Part III (notification), Part V (enforcement), and Section 55 (Unlawful obtaining of personal data).Emphasis addedQuote:    * Section 55 - Unlawful obtaining of personal data. This Section makes it an offence for people (Other Parties), such as hackers and impersonators, outside the organisation to obtain unauthorised access to the personal data.[8]So the government can, in the name of national security, use unlawful / illegal means to obtain the data without any risk of persecution ? How nice. And then people complain about the Patriot Act...   ;  UK Government: "Jump"US Government: "No"However...US Government: "Jump"UK Government: "How high?"Quite frankly, given "Jackboot Jacqui"'s cavalier attitude to Data Protection, privacy and civil liberties I would suggest hosting your website in a totally third-party and neutral country.I don't know the name of the company, but I've got a friend who used to host his sites in France and he never had any problems with service quality or the French authorities.   ;  If you feel that your data is really that sensitive, you should probably be encrypting it regardless of which country the database is located. In most cases, the danger of I@m4@xx0rz4L0lc@tz gaining access to your database is much higher than that of Uncle Sam, and I@m4@xx0rz4L0lc@tz does not wait for a warrant. Most modern languages have encryption libraries these days. AES/Rijndael seems to be the popular one for symmetric encryption.   ;  I will definately encrypt the data anyway.I signed up to the host for a 6 month trial to see if the site has any potential. I will probably transfer to a different server near that time.