Lots of information we have heard in the past several months from Microsoft were repeated and reinforced today during the opening keynote of their annual Word Partner Conference in Washington, DC.

One thing Microsoft added to their list of critical areas for partners to focus on with them was security.

Now security is not anything new to Microsoft. It was former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates that put the company on a path to really up the security standards for their products.

Although not free of security related issues by a longshot the company has a solid process to deal with vulnerabilities and we see part of that each month on that day we all lovingly refer to as Patch Tuesday.

Well security and privacy has changed over the years and no more so than in the last year as we learned about a very broad line of surveillance of nearly every aspect of our lives.

As reports came out about what information tech companies did and did not share in these surveillance programs we saw these same tech companies taking stands on what personal and private information they would release relating to their customers.

That has resulted in Microsoft making it very clear what they will and will not share or do when it comes to our private data they hold on us.

Those expectations were clarified during the opening keynote of WPC14 by Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner.

Microsoft’s Commitment to Data Privacy and Security

  • Strengthening the encryption of customer data across our network and services
  • Best-in-class cryptography
  • We are committed to notifying business and government customers if we receive legal orders related to their data
  • Microsoft provides governments with an appropriate ability to review our source code, reassure themselves of its integrity and confirm no backdoors
  • Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has been at the forefront of fighting cybercrime
  • Trustworthy computing an engineering approach that has been in place for 12+ years and we continue to invest
  • Microsoft does not provide any government with direct, unfettered access to customer data
  • Microsoft does not provide any government with encryption keys or assist their efforts to break our encryption
  • Microsoft does not engineer back doors into our products
  • Microsoft has never provided business or government data in response to a national security order
  • Microsoft will contest any attempt by the US government to disclose customer content stored exclusively overseas

If you want to stay up to speed on Microsoft’s position on these types of issues then visit the Microsoft on the Issues blog for info on their stance relating to not only legal matters but also public policy and citizenship.