Rules need to catch up with tech to protect privacy: Microsoft

Expressing concern over governments demanding access consumer data, software giant Microsoft said regulations have to keep pace with technology.

NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over increasing intervention by governments to access consumer data, software giant Microsoft today said regulations need to keep pace with rapidly changing technology to secure and protect privacy of individuals.

Microsoft, like its peers Google, Apple and Facebook, has been strongly advocating for protecting security of customers and their information.

"Governments have a fundamentally important role in striking a balance between privacy and security. We want to live in a world where the public is safe and where privacy rights are secure. Governments need to strike a balance especially in democratic societies," Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith told reporters here.

He added that it is of fundamental importance that governments access the information of people through proper legal processes that respect the rule of the law.

Smith said laws also need to "catch up" with technology as the latter has moved at a fast pace in the last two to three decades.

"As we look to the future, we believe there is a need for legal modernisation at the national level and perhaps even more, there is a need for a new international legal processes... That's the only way we are going to ensure that law enforcement works effectively and privacy receives all the strong protection it deserves," he said.

Yesterday, Apple opposed a US court's ruling to unlock the iPhone of Syed Farook, who shot dead 14 people and injured 22 others in San Bernardino, California, along with another shooter last December.

Responding to a federal judge's order to provide investigators access to Farook's iPhone, Apple CEO Tim Cook said building a backdoor access to encrypted data on the iPhone of the shooter would be "too dangerous" to create.

The "unprecedented step" would threaten the security of its customers, Cook wrote in an open letter to customers.

The Reform Government Surveillance, which is a coalition between Microsoft, Apple, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and Yahoo!, also supported Cook.

The alliance said while it is extremely important to deter terrorists and criminals, technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users' information secure.

Asked about his views on governments insisting on setting up local data centres, he said it is a "mistake" as it pushes up the cost of cloud computing.

"I think it's a mistake for governments to require data localisation. If every country said that all the data in the country needed to stay in the country, we would quickly see a spiralling cost to cloud computing," he said.

Smith said security of data can be advanced through data classification since only some of the data is sensitive.

"I think governments can advance digital transformation and security by developing a classification scheme that guides the different agencies... what it really does is, it protects the most sensitive data and moving other data to the cloud in a way that makes it accessible to the public at large," he said.

Smith added that this would be an important opportunity for India and that governments across the world are focusing on this.

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