Microsoft Allows Companies to Store European Customer Data in Europe From Now on

From January 1, it will be easier at Microsoft to store data from European customers within the EU. However, in the long term, everything should be kept more simply within the union’s borders.

In its EU data boundary project, Microsoft makes it possible from January 1 to store customer data specifically at Microsoft data centres in the EU. It stores Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Power BI Platform data.

The idea to do that has been around for some time, Microsoft announced the plans last year, and now it is ready with a first phase that will start in 2023. In the second and third phases, logging data and service data will also be added, as other data. So those second and third phases should be ready at the end of 2023 and 2024.

In recent years there have been more political concerns about where data is processed and stored, and sector agreements to allow data to be sent to the US have been rejected more than once. However, Microsoft can still offer its cloud services without being dependent on such arrangements by allowing customers to keep data within the EU.