A data haven, like a

corporate haven Corporate haven, corporate tax haven, or multinational tax haven is used to describe a jurisdiction that multinational corporations find attractive for establishing subsidiaries or Incorporation (business), incorporation of regional or main company ...

tax haven A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for Domicile (law), non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher. In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers Bank secrecy, ...

, is a refuge for uninterrupted or unregulated

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

. Data havens are locations with legal environments that are friendly to the concept of a

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

freely holding data and even protecting its content and associated information. They tend to fit into three categories: a physical locality with weak information-system enforcement and

extradition In an extradition, one Jurisdiction (area), jurisdiction delivers a person Suspect, accused or Conviction, convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforc ...

laws, a physical locality with intentionally strong protections of data, and virtual domains designed to secure data via technical means (such as

encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...

) regardless of any legal environment.

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Toronto, Canada ** Toronto Raptors * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor ...

's onion space, I2P (both hidden services),

HavenCo HavenCo Limited was a data haven, data hosting services company, founded in 2000 to operate from Sealand, a unrecognised self-declared principality that occupies HM Fort Roughs off the coast of England. In November 2008, operations of Haven ...

(centralized), and

Freenet Hyphanet (until mid-2023: Freenet) is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, Anonymity application, anonymous communication. It uses a decentralized distributed data store to keep and deliver information, and has a suite of free soft ...

(decentralized) are four models of modern-day virtual data havens.

Purposes of data havens

Reasons for establishing data havens include access to free political speech for users in countries where

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

is practiced. Other reasons can include: *

Whistleblowing Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

* Distributing

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

, data or speech that violates laws such as the

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

Copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

* Circumventing

data protection Data protection may refer to: * Information privacy, also known as data privacy * Data security {{Authority control ...

laws *

Online gambling Online gambling (also known as iGaming or iGambling) is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos, and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for th ...

Pornography Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is Sexual suggestiveness, sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolv ...

Cybercrime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or Computer network, networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cyberc ...

Privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

* Geopolitical tension

History of the term

The 1978 report of the British government's Data Protection Committee expressed concern that different

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

standards in different countries would lead to the transfer of personal data to countries with weaker protections; it feared that Britain might become a "data haven". Also in 1978, Adrian Norman published a mock consulting study on the feasibility of setting up a company providing a wide range of data haven services, called "Project Goldfish". Science fiction novelist

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...

used the term in his novels ''

Count Zero ''Count Zero'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It presents a near future whose technologies include a network of supercomputers that created a "matrix" in "cyberspace", an acce ...

'' and ''

Mona Lisa Overdrive ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following ''Neuromancer'' and ''Count Zero'', taking place eight years afte ...

'', as did Bruce Sterling in '' Islands in the Net''. The 1990s segments of

Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathemati ...

's 1999 novel ''

Cryptonomicon ''Cryptonomicon'' is a 1999 novel by American author Neal Stephenson, set in two different time periods. One group of characters are World War II–era Allied codebreakers and tactical-deception operatives affiliated with the British Govern ...

'' concern a small group of entrepreneurs attempting to create a data haven.

References

{{Reflist Computer law Anonymity networks Crypto-anarchism Internet privacy Data laws

Purposes of data havens

History of the term

See also

References