Microsoft may ramp up encryption of customer data post-Snowden
Microsoft has confirmed to SCMagazineUK.com that it is considering encrypting customers' personal data which it sends over the internet, in the wake of the allegations of mass electronic surveillance by the NSA.
The revelation that Microsoft is “evaluating additional changes that may be beneficial to further protect our customers' data” came after its EMEA vice president of legal and corporate affairs, Dorothee Belz, faced tough questioning on Monday from a Committee of European MEPs.
The grilling came on Monday during the ninth in a series of hearings by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee, which is looking into the electronic mass surveillance by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ revealed by ex-NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Belz appeared together with Google's director of public policy and government relations, Nicklas Lundblad, and Facebook's EMEA director for public policy, Richard Allan. All three companies denied that they had allowed the NSA or any other government agency access to their customers' personal data through server backdoors.
