Data haven
Refuge for unregulated data
title: "Data haven" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["computer-law", "anonymity-networks", "crypto-anarchism", "internet-privacy", "data-laws"] description: "Refuge for unregulated data" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_haven" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Refuge for unregulated data ::
A data haven, like a corporate haven or tax haven, is a refuge for uninterrupted or unregulated data. Data havens are locations with legal environments that are friendly to the concept of a computer network 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 laws, a physical locality with intentionally strong protections of data, and virtual domains designed to secure data via technical means (such as encryption) regardless of any legal environment.
Tor's onion space, I2P (both hidden services), HavenCo (centralized), and Freenet (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 of the Internet is practiced.
Other reasons can include:
- Whistleblowing
- Distributing software, data or speech that violates laws such as the DMCA
- Copyright infringement
- Circumventing data protection laws
- Online gambling
- Pornography
- Cybercrime
- Privacy
- Geopolitical tension
History of the term
The 1978 report of the British government's Data Protection Committee expressed concern that different privacy 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".{{cite web |url=http://www.adminet.co.uk/clients/ANAAL/goldfish.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903080638/http://www.adminet.co.uk/clients/ANAAL/goldfish.pdf |archive-date=2011-09-03 |last=Norman |first=Adrian |title=Project Goldfish |publisher=IPC Science and Technology Press |date=September 1978
Science fiction novelist William Gibson used the term in his novels Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, as did Bruce Sterling in Islands in the Net. The 1990s segments of Neal Stephenson's 1999 novel Cryptonomicon concern a small group of entrepreneurs attempting to create a data haven.
References
References
- (June 17, 2010). "The Switzerland of bits". The Economist.
- (April 7, 2013). "Gov Spying Boosts Swiss Data Center Revenues". Forbes.
- "Iceland aims to become an offshore haven for journalists and leakers".
- Michael, James. (November 9, 1978). "New Report on Computer Data Banks". [[New Scientist]].
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