- Microsoft and DigitalEurope drafted a confidentiality clause that the EU Commission copy-pasted into law, blocking public access to individual data center emissions and water usage.
- Ten environmental law scholars say the secrecy provision likely violates the Aarhus Convention—an international treaty guaranteeing public access to environmental information.
- Europe plans to double its data center capacity to over 17GW by 2030, with €176 billion in investment—yet communities can’t access data on the facilities being built next door.
The European Union just handed Big Tech a confidentiality shield for its dirtiest secret. A provision drafted by Microsoft and the lobbying group DigitalEurope—which counts Amazon, Google, and Meta among its members—was incorporated almost word-for-word into a 2024 implementing regulation under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive. The result: individual data center information on energy consumption, water use, and emissions is now classified as confidential, reported Tech Policy Press and Investigate Europe.
The clause doesn’t just prevent journalists and researchers from accessing the data. It blocks freedom of information requests entirely. Member states were explicitly told to refuse public inquiries about specific facilities. The logic, according to sources close to the Commission, was that transparency might cause operators to stop reporting altogether—a remarkable admission that the EU’s regulatory leverage was already that fragile.
What was supposed to be a straightforward reporting exercise under the 2023 revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive became something else entirely. The directive required data center operators to report key performance metrics. A first draft circulated in December 2023 stated the data should be “published in aggregated form.” By March 2024, after Microsoft and DigitalEurope submitted identical feedback requesting confidentiality, the final text made individual facility data a state secret in all but name.
Legal Scholars Say the EU Broke Its Own Transparency Laws
Ten environmental law scholars across Europe told Investigate Europe the confidentiality clause likely violates the Aarhus Convention—an international treaty that guarantees public access to environmental information, including emissions data. Professor Jerzy Jendrośka, who spent 19 years on the convention’s compliance body, said he couldn’t recall a comparable case in two decades. “This clearly seems not to be in line with the convention,” said Jendrośka, a professor of environmental law at Opole University.
The clause went further than the Commission’s original proposal. In early 2024, both Microsoft and DigitalEurope submitted feedback suggesting an identical new article classifying all individual data center information as confidential—beyond even what freedom of information requests could access. When the final text dropped in March 2024, their proposed language was there almost verbatim. “The fact that the Commission copy-pasted a Microsoft amendment is shocking,” said Bram Vranken of Corporate Europe Observatory. “Who does the Commission really represent: Big Tech or the public interest?”
Luc Lavrysen, the former president of the Belgian Constitutional Court, called the blanket confidentiality clause “clearly in violation” of EU transparency rules. An internal Commission email from early 2025 went further, instructing national authorities that they were “obliged to keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual data centers.” The message was unambiguous: if a citizen asks how much water the Microsoft facility in their town consumes, the answer is classified.
€176 Billion in Data Centers—and Zero Accountability
The timing is what makes this sting. Europe is building data centers at breakneck speed, with €176 billion in investment expected over the next five years. Installed capacity is projected to nearly double from 9.2 gigawatts today to over 17GW by 2030, driven largely by AI workloads. The political backlash against unchecked data center growth is already playing out in the US—Maine became the first state to ban large AI data centers, though 11 other attempts have failed.
Meanwhile, the EU has only managed to collect metrics from roughly 770 of approximately 2,000 eligible data centers—about 36 percent. The Commission’s internal fear, according to Investigate Europe’s sources, was that mandating full transparency would cause operators to stop reporting entirely. So the compromise was to let them report in secret, collecting data that no one outside the Commission and national regulators can see.
The practical consequences are concrete. A community in Frankfurt or Dublin where a hyperscale facility is drawing millions of gallons of water and consuming as much electricity as a small city cannot access information about that specific site. Academics studying the environmental impact of AI infrastructure are working with national aggregates that obscure the worst offenders. Journalists investigating pollution complaints hit a legal wall that Microsoft helped build.
With the EU’s data center footprint set to nearly double in five years, the confidentiality clause compounds over time. Every new facility built under this regime adds to a growing blind spot in Europe’s environmental monitoring—and the companies profiting from the buildout are the same ones who wrote the rule keeping the public in the dark.
