My Globe and Mail op-ed last week argued that the U.S. is pursuing a two-pronged strategy on cross-border data: the CLOUD Act to assert legal access wherever data sits, and trade policy to pressure countries that try to move their data beyond that reach. This post provides the underlying data that the op-ed could not fit with a fuller picture of what the 2026 U.S. National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) actually says about cloud computing and data sovereignty across the globe.
Post Tagged with: "cloud act"
Heads They Win, Tails We Lose: What Lies Behind the U.S. Trade Battle For Control over Data
My Globe and Mail op-ed begins by noting that the Trump administration’s emphasis on tariffs continues to garner headlines, but a more consequential trade battle over data control is playing out with far less public attention. Last week, the U.S. released its annual report on trade barriers and for the first time, Canada was listed alongside dozens of other countries for seeking greater control over its own data. The message is clear: When countries enact laws that restrict where data is stored and who can access that information, the U.S. treats them as a trade threat.
The Catch-22 of Canadian Digital Sovereignty
My latest Globe and Mail op-ed begins by noting that digital sovereignty has emerged as the watchword driving Canada’s digital policy agenda, as the government seeks to position the country as a global leader in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The increased emphasis on digital policy is welcome given the years of neglect or failed strategies that yielded little more than court challenges, trade disputes and blocked news links. Yet the focus on infrastructure spending as the key catalyst for addressing digital sovereignty risks is misplaced and unlikely to safeguard against lost autonomy and control.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 245: Kate Robertson on Bill C-2’s Cross-Border Data Sharing Privacy Risks
Bill C-2, the government’s proposed lawful access legislation, has been the subject of several prior episodes covering warrantless disclosure of information as part of the new information demand power in Part 14 of the bill as well as some of the surveillance technology capabilities found in Part 15. Those remain major issues, but there is another element of the bill that deserves greater attention, particularly at this moment when the Canada – US relationship is increasingly fraught. That issue involves mandated data sharing with implications for Canada’s international treaty obligations under the “Second Additional Protocol” to the Budapest Convention as well as the US Cloud Act. Kate Robertson, a lawyer and senior research associate at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto, wrote an extensive brief on these issues soon after the bill was introduced. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about a critical Bill C-2 issue that has thus far attracted limited attention.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 124: David Fraser on Negotiating a CLOUD Act Agreement Between Canada and the United States
The CLOUD Act, which allows US law enforcement to use a warrant or subpoena to compel U.S.-based technology companies to provide data stored on servers regardless of where the data is located, was first introduced in the United States in 2018. Canada and the US recently announced plans to negotiate a Cloud Act agreement which would ease cross-border disclosures of data between the two countries.
David Fraser is a lawyer with McInnes Cooper in Halifax and one of Canada’s leading privacy experts. He regularly acts for clients on data disclosure matters and was one of the first to highlight the negotiations and its implications on his Youtube channel. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the Cloud Act, how it might fit into Canada’s privacy law framework, and how Canada should approach the negotiations.
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