Chalk it up as a big win for privacy. And transparency. And thank the EU, along the way. For Microsoft has just updated its privacy rules for cloud contracts after it was investigated.
The company announced these changes after the privacy probe by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) found that the company had failed to protect data according to EU law — more specifically according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines.
The organization investigated Microsoft contracts with European Commission and other EU bodies.
As a result, Microsoft will roll out new cloud contractual terms.
Expressing its willingness to work with customers, Julie Brill, Corporate Vice President for Global Privacy and Regulatory Affairs and Chief Privacy Officer at Microsoft, has said that these changes will give customers more transparency with regards to how their data is processed in the Microsoft cloud:
“We remain committed to listening closely to our customers’ needs and concerns regarding privacy. Whenever customer questions arise, we stand ready to focus our engineering, legal and business resources on implementing measures that our customers require. At Microsoft, this is part of our mission to empower every individual and organization on the planet to achieve more.”
According to the details, the EDSP said last month that it had serious concerns over compliance for the cloud contracts that the Redmond based company serves up.
It had kicked off an investigation in April after the Dutch Ministry of Justice had found that the telemetry data that Microsoft collected from Office 365 ProPlus and Office 365 users violated GDPR. The software titan was quick to respond then, and said that it would cooperate with all relevant watchdogs.
And now, being the time for action, the company has announced that the changes to its commercial cloud contracts will apply globally and to all its commercial customers — whether public or private sector entity, large or small business.
The cloud giant also confirmed that these contract provisions will be rolled out globally by the beginning of 2020.
