House of Representatives passes Email Privacy Act

On February 6, 2017 the House of Representatives in the United States of America passed the Email Privacy Act by voice vote, which amends the existing online communications law, in particular the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986.

Within the ECPA, emails stored on a third party’s server for over 180 days are considered to be abandoned. Due to this justification it was enough for law enforcement agencies to provide a written statement certifying that the requested information is relevant to an investigation in order to obtain the content of stored emails. The Email Privacy Act requires authorities to obtain a warrant in order to access emails, data in cloud storage and other digital communications, which are more than 180 days old.

Meanwhile it is the third try for a new law in this field. The last proposal for a regulation also passed the House in the last Congress, but it could not pass the Senate. The first try has already failed in the House. It remains to be seen whether the current proposal of the Email Privacy Act will pass the Senate.

The Email Privacy Act has won the backing of Google, Microsoft and other big players based in the USA.