Microsoft Corp's head lawyer has suggested that overseas customers will
be allowed to have their personal data stored in non-U.S. data centers,
the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
It would be the most
radical move yet by a U.S. technology company to combat concerns that
U.S. intelligence agencies routinely monitor foreigners.
A Microsoft spokesperson declined further comment on the remarks that Brad
Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, made to the comments to the
Financial Times, which published them on Wednesday.
"People should
have the ability to know whether their data are being subjected to the
laws and access of governments in some other country and should have the
ability to make an informed choice of where their data resides," Smith
told the FT.
He went on to say that customers could choose where
to have their data stored in Microsoft's wide network of data centers,
for example Europeans could specify a facility in Ireland.
The
airing of the idea, which Smith did not back up with concrete plans, was
the clearest sign so far that Microsoft is worried about the public
backlash, especially overseas, to revelations by former National
Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden that the NSA claimed to
directly tap into tech companies' servers to spy on foreign individuals.
Microsoft
denies that, and has said that it only hands over customer data when
properly requested by intelligence agencies, but an air of mistrust has
remained, especially in Europe and China.
(Also see: Microsoft wants to disclose US government data queries)
If Microsoft follows
through on Smith's suggestion, it would mark a departure from U.S.
technology companies' largely unified response to the NSA scandal, which
has so far steered away from the idea of offering non-U.S. data storage
for overseas users.
Microsoft, along with Apple Inc, Facebook
Inc, Google Inc, Twitter Inc and others jointly called in December for
reforms in the way governments use Internet surveillance, lobbying for
more transparency and a ban on bulk data collection.
(Also see: Obama meets Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech firm's chiefs amid NSA concerns)
But the
companies also backed free access to data and demanded that "governments
should not require service providers to locate infrastructure within a
country's borders or operate locally."
Offering customers the
choice of data centers would be easier for Microsoft than some smaller
companies, as it already has a number of storage facilities across the
globe.
Smith has in the past written about Microsoft's desire to
protect customer data from cross-border snooping by governments, in
earlier attempts to soothe overseas concerns.
"We'll assert
available jurisdictional objections to legal demands when governments
seek this type of customer content that is stored in another country,"
Smith wrote in a blog on Microsoft's site in December.
© Thomson Reuters 2014
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