For organizations looking to reap the benefits of cloud computing, it is important to know how a service provider is using customer data stored in the cloud and to trust that the service provider will only use their data in a way that is consistent with customer expectations. At Microsoft, the data that our enterprise customers entrust to us belongs to them, and we believe that data should not be used for unrelated purposes, such as advertising.
As a leader in cloud services, data privacy is a top priority for us, because it is a prerequisite for customer trust. When we build cloud services, we build in privacy and data protection principles, right from the start. This privacy-inclusive approach to engineering informs how we design, create and operate services, as well as how we structure our internal governance of customer data.
If you would like to read more about Microsoft’s efforts to engineer with privacy, cyber-security, compliance and transparency in mind, download the new white paper: Protecting Data and Privacy in the Cloud. The paper outlines our approach and processes to helping to ensure customer data in enterprise services like Windows Azure, Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online, and Windows Intune, remains private.
I’ll be back in the next few days with two additional posts taking a closer look at data and privacy protection.
