Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2026

Abstract

In an increasingly interconnected digital world, law enforcement and national security’s access to data stored across borders presents complex legal and policy challenges. In the United States, such access is primarily regulated by the Stored Communications Act (SCA), which was passed in 1986 as Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Next year marks the statute’s 40th anniversary. The SCA applies to “electronic computing services” and “remote computing services.” In essence, these key terms delineate the scope of the Act. Their definitions were written for a tech world that is dramatically different from the one we live in today. When ECPA was first passed, Tim Berners-Lee had just proposed the idea of the World Wide Web at CERN, which wasn’t released to the public until the following decade. Mainstays of today’s digital economy, such as Google and Amazon, only emerged in the 1990s. Apple launched its first iPhone in the 2000s, and Facebook, now Meta, was created. The 2010s saw the proliferation of the gig economy, with notable examples such as Uber and Airbnb, and the global debut of 5G networks. The rise of artificial intelligence over the past decade, and the explosive growth of large language models in the recent past, raises fundamentally new questions about our relationship to technology. Through it all, the SCA’s definitions of “electronic computing service” and “remote computing service” have remained unchanged. Indeed, their impact has grown significantly, and they now play an influential role in defining the scope of key legal instruments, such as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the CLOUD Act, and international instruments governing government access to private sector data. Over the years, stakeholders in industry, government, and civil society have raised questions about the SCA’s ability to protect the privacy of electronic communications.1 With the dramatic changes brought about by artificial intelligence in how people and organizations interact with the world around them, the time has come to examine whether the SCA is due for an update. This paper will provide a brief history of the SCA, an overview of how the terms “electronic communication service” and “remote computing service” have been interpreted by courts, and an examination of how the SCA applies to companies developing artificial intelligence. It will then examine the SCA’s expanded impact in newer legal instruments.

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