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Fastmail offers EU data region

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-offers-eu-data-region/
96•groomlake•2h ago

Comments

I_am_tiberius•48m ago
And which company hosts the data? An American company like Aws, Azure, Google or a European company like OVH, Stackit?
techpression•47m ago
> We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers. This new location is built to the same high standards as our existing infrastructure in Philadelphia and St Louis, with our own hardware and our own software — specified right down to the exact model of disks in each machine.
fhdkweig•45m ago
The flagged/dead comment contains a copy of the entire page, but the relevant part is:

> Built by us, not rented from someone else

> We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers. This new location is built to the same high standards as our existing infrastructure in Philadelphia and St Louis, with our own hardware and our own software — specified right down to the exact model of disks in each machine.

> In all our locations, data is stored encrypted at rest inside locked racks, and managed by our in-house team. We don’t rent computing or management services from a big cloud provider and pass on their assurances. That’s how we’ve approached privacy, reliability, and performance for more than 25 years.

PeterStuer•47m ago
Five Eyes country are subject to local data disclosure orders and gag clauses, forcing them to hand over user data that may then enter the shared intelligence pool
skywal_l•38m ago
There are no Five Eyes country in the EU.
throw1234567891•34m ago
they offer services in the EU
r_lee•26m ago
the company is based in Australia, which is part of FVEY
anon48293•19m ago
No, but there are nine eyes and fourteen eyes with EU countries.
PeterStuer•15m ago
Is fastmail not australian?
senderista•17m ago
Not sure Five Eyes will outlast Trump, the UK has reportedly stopped sharing some intelligence with the US:

https://www.courthousenews.com/uk-faces-questions-on-complic...

robin_reala•47m ago
Posted on the previous submission for this: it’s a good start, but from the article:

If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.

intothemild•38m ago
Wow they completely missed the ball on why people want reassurances that their data stays in the EU
altairprime•45m ago
EU folks, note the warnings threaded throughout this post: this is not currently any sort of panacea against US or AU data hosting risks, but it will make your data noticeably closer to home. Fastmail (Australia) merged with Pobox (Philadelphia) resulting in a complex tri-national law/risk surface when the EU is involved, so go in eyes wide open having read this in full. That everyone will overinterpret “EU data region” to mean “for privacy” here until reading the article is completely understandable; I empathize, having done the same.
jacquesm•45m ago
EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happened. There are only very few such stacks that are 100% owned by EU entities.
V__•39m ago
For anyone curious, it's the CLOUD act:

> The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

braiamp•34m ago
Which wouldn't matter where the data is located, so I don't think that this is the reason Fastmail is doing it, because a savvy enough company would know that the problem is that the company is US based.
kid64•28m ago
They're Australian
petcat•19m ago
Australian companies are also subject to the USA Cloud Act. As is the UK, with Canada coming on board soon too.

Even the entire EU is in the process of negotiating the agreement as well.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/united-states-and-ca...

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-a...

honeycrispy•44m ago
Right in time for Chat Control 1.0. Servers in Europe doesn't have the same privacy implications that it had a year ago.
flexagoon•7m ago
Chat Control 1.0 is a permanent extension of a temporary law that already existed a year ago, allowing the companies to scan your messages if they want to. Nothing changed since then.
lrae•5m ago
You mean Chat Control 1.0 that was already in place from 2021 to April 2026 and allows for voluntary scanning for CSAM in unecrypted data through hash-matching for existing and indexed CSAM material?
KingOfCoders•18m ago
We offer EU data centers for customers that want their emails to stay in the EU but

"Resilient replicas of your data will live in the US"

?

crossroadsguy•8m ago
[delayed]
cube2222•17m ago
Nice, as a European customer, I appreciate this.

Side note, I moved to Fastmail a couple years ago, and so far I’ve been very happy with it! The Gmail migrator works great, too.

varispeed•10m ago
Data is still compellable through US Cloud Act (and other provisions). If you want true EU data region, you should buy from a company without presence in the US.
crossroadsguy•10m ago
[delayed]
Marciplan•9m ago
using cirrux.me and very happy with an actual EU hosted option (Team is Dutch)
lschueller•8m ago
If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.

Is there an alternative that really keeps data in the EU? (And not only in the sense it serves a sales promotion)

vzaliva•3m ago
I do not know any EU-only, but ProtonMail is in Switzerland.
petcat•1m ago
Email data locality guarantees are pointless because you can never guarantee every sender and receiver are "in the EU".
atmosx•5m ago
Okay, that solves two problems for me. Great news.
wolfi1•16m ago
isn't there this five eyes thingy?
mrtesthah•30m ago
Ok, but Fastmail is an Australian company based in Melbourne.
toomuchtodo•28m ago
And as a FastMail customer who spends a portion of the year in the US, I am happy to pay to move my data to the EU region, even if they cannot yet fully guarantee all my data will remain outside of US access at this time. Defense and mitigations in depth, over time. We must always start somewhere, and perfect is never the target (as it does not exist).
petcat•26m ago
Australia and the US entered into a bilateral agreement in 2024 which made Australian companies subject to the US CLOUD Act.

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-oia/cloud-act-agre...

OJFord•25m ago
But whose cloud infrastructure do they use? (I don't know, but it might likely be AWS, GCP, or Azure.)
microtonal•12m ago
That it described in the linked post:

We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers.

ffsm8•13m ago
> your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happened

as a german i feel the urge to point out that this technically also applies to european companies... With more hurdles for the US, but still technically applicable

usernomdeguerre•2m ago
True, I think the calculus is more about who you think is more trustworthy than what tools they have to damage you.
amelius•11m ago
How does Apple handle it?
rufasterisco•9m ago
Can you point me towards some resources that show EU customers moving?

Not that I don’t trust the statement, I just would like to know more.

atmosx•4m ago
That’s true and Fastmail runs on AWS. But it’s a start and a “feature” many have requested for years. It’s funny because the HQ and I believe their workforce is located in Australia.
microtonal•2m ago
Yeah, this does absolutely not solve the CLOUD Act issues. However, it is good to look at what the ramifications of the CLOUD Act is for e-mail:

- The US could request your data. You probably shouldn't use e-mail for anything sensitive anyway for many reasons. E-Mail was traditionally not encrypted and I think that many servers still allow plain-text communication. The protocols are old and there are all kinds of downgrade attacks. Aside from that, even if your service does not fall under the CLOUD Act, you are probably f*cked anyway, because most people you communicate with are using services that fall under the CLOUD Act.

- The US can force the provider to block your account. The workarounds are: regularly backup your e-mail (easy for services that offer IMAP) and, most importantly, use a domain with an extension that is not under the control of a US (or probably five eyes) registrar.

Use an E2E-encrypted messenger with perfect forward secrecy, etc. for most personal communication.

Fastmail offers EU data region

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-offers-eu-data-region/
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