'Customer data security, regulations are enduring principles'

Software giant Microsoft today said security of customer data and compliance with regulations are both "enduring principles" that the company keeps in mind while designing its products.
Last month, technology giant Apple had opposed a US court's ruling to unlock the iPhone of a Pakistani-American who shot dead 14 people in California, saying forcing companies to enable hacking could "compromise" user's privacy.
"...Around data, we are at the very beginning of even understanding what are the frameworks of law, what are the regulations because there got to be enduring principles that you have to navigate and keep constant," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at an event today.

He cited the example of security and said it would be important to keep in mind how data is kept secure and private and at the same time, it is transparent to the users in terms of what the data is being used for as well as compliance.
"These are the enduring principles on a worldwide basis, not just in one jurisdiction, not in one country...You really have to think through not after the fact but in the design decisions of the products that you use and the products that you build," the India-born CEO said.
Microsoft, like its peers Google, Apple and Facebook, has been strongly advocating for protecting security of customers and their information.

The Reform Government Surveillance, which is a coalition between Microsoft, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and Yahoo!, had also come out in support of Apple.

It had 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.
Nadella said Microsoft, as a company, focusses a lot on people and organisations while designing its products.
"We deeply believe in the power of institutions, companies, non-profit, public sector. We think institution is what builds economies and society and of course, institutions are built by people. And so that connection of how people come together and how institutions thrive using technology is front and centre to us," Nadella said.

He added that another important factor kept in mind was using data to enable better decision making for its customers.
"So when we talk about data that notion of being able to take lots of data and converting it into better decisions, better judgement, better intelligence is the most important thing that we think about as we build our products," he said.