Google plans to migrate UK user accounts from Ireland to the US following Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

The sensitive data of tens of millions of users could be shifted away from Ireland, where it currently resides, according to Reuters. That's believed to be amid concerns from Google that the UK will loosen its data protection laws and fail to agree on a data-sharing agreement with EU, potentially making it difficult to transfer data between Ireland and the UK.

The migration will involve asking UK users to agree to new terms of service, which includes consent to holding their data under the new jurisdiction.

The move could mean UK authorities are better able to recover data for criminal investigations, thanks to the CLOUD Act that has made cross-border data transfers much easier. However, it raises concerns as the US has much weaker data protection laws than across the EU. While the Californian Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), outlines some protections, there is no national federal data protection law with sufficient provisions akin to GDPR or the UK's Data Protection Act 2018.

According to the firm’s former global privacy technology lead, Lea Kissner, Google fears that the UK water will water down its data protection laws enough that it fails to reach an adequacy agreement with the EU. Without that agreement, data sharing will become more complex, and potentially require company by company contracts.