CLOUD KEY ESCROW SYSTEM

Embodiments are directed to allowing a user to store encrypted, third-party-accessible data in a data store and to providing third party data access to a user's encrypted data according to a predefined policy. A data storage system receives encrypted data from a user at a data storage system. The data is encrypted using the user's private key. The data storage system stores the received encrypted data according to a predefined policy. The encryption prevents the storage system from gaining access to the encrypted data, while the policy allows the encrypted data to be released upon receiving a threshold number of requests from verified third parties. The data storage system implements a verifiable secret sharing scheme to verify that the encrypted data can be reconstituted without the data storage system accessing the encrypted data. The data storage system synchronously acknowledges that the received encrypted data has been verified and successfully stored.