EFF to Court: Government Must Inform People That It’s Accessing Their Data

This makes perfect sense to me. If the government is required to present a warrant in order to enter a home and seize a computer to search for files, why should they be able to ignore the Constitution when it comes to data stored in the cloud?

I like the analogy to safety deposit boxes quoted in the article. Cloud storage has a lot of parallels when you think about it. Current data collection practices would then be comparable to the government going into a bank and looking inside the contents of every safety deposit box. All while not informing any of the bank's customers and putting a gag order on the bank from doing so.

This is the kind of thing the EFF should be doing more of!

I have a horrible idea, but I'm curious; what would happen if everyone had some ownership of any data they create (such as through copyright) or perhaps data that could be linked to them in any way.

Question: If the police obtain a warrant to search my home, and then do so while I'm away on vacation, are they required to notify me?

This would definitely reduce the kafka slide, but it won't happen while public is this complacent.

The title suggests that there has been some sort of policy change where the government now has to inform people when accessing their data. What actually happened is the EFF made a statement to a federal court arguing for that, but no policy change has happened.

Just for kicks the back of my iPhone is plastered with EFF stickers. And I live in China :-D