The case about whether Microsoft Corporation must hand over overseas data to investigators under a U.S. warrant has reached the Supreme Court this week, with the nine justices ready to hear arguments on Tuesday.
The case traces back to 2013, when the world-leading technology company was served a warrant by the Department of Justice for emails and information of a suspect involved in a drug trafficking investigation.
Microsoft handed over the data stored on domestic servers, but refused to turn over the rest of the emails stored on the company's servers in Dublin, Ireland.
In a fight to protect its international customer's privacy rights, Microsoft challenged whether it should comply with a domestic warrant for customer data stored outside of the country, saying that the government's action could harm the interests of other countries and people.
The Justice Department argued that its prosecutors should have access to the data as Microsoft is based in the United States.
Attention has been drawn to a law written in 1986, known as the Stored Communications Act, under which the warrant was obtained. Lawmakers at Congress are considering updating the law, which was created long before cloud computing technology came into being, a move supported by Microsoft and the federal government.
Technology companies such as IBM Corporation, Apple, Amazon, Google and others have filed court briefs backing Microsoft, which now manages over 100 data centers in 40 countries.
The case is expected to receive a ruling by the end of June.
