Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government which terms in the contract signed with Microsoft concerning the use of cloud services by police prevent the sharing of data with the government of the USA without the express permission of the government of the UK; and whether those terms differ from Microsoft's standard terms of service.

As the police are operationally independent it is the responsibility of Chief Constables to ensure that any contracts for services and supplies meet both their legal and security requirements.

Moreover, the use of data by the police for policing purposes is largely governed by Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 which sets out requirements for the use of processors, and what contractual terms must be included. Section 59(7) of the Act makes provision for the international transfer of personal data by a processor acting under the instruction of a controller.