Author: Brad Smith

President and Chief Legal Officer

Brad Smith is Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer. Smith plays a key role in representing the company externally and in leading the company’s work on a number of critical issues including privacy, security, accessibility, environmental sustainability and digital inclusion, among others.

Posts by Brad Smith

The need for a Digital Geneva Convention

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

This year’s RSA Conference in San Francisco brings the world’s security professionals together to discuss cybersecurity at a critical time.  The past year has witnessed not just the growth of cybercrime, but a proliferation in cyberattacks that is both new and disconcerting.  This has included not only cyber-attacks mounted for financial gain, but new nation-state attacks as well.  As engineers and other employees across the tech sector meet in San … Read more »

Protecting innovation in the cloud

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

Rapid advancements in cloud computing are creating new capabilities, insights and efficiencies, allowing businesses big and small to transform the way they deliver products and services. As this transformation accelerates, virtually every company in every sector of the economy is becoming in part a digital business. And as a digital business, it must master the new legal challenges that come with participation in the booming digital economy.

Building a cloud for global good

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

Today Satya Nadella and I are in Dublin. It’s the first stop on a trip that will also take us to Paris and Berlin, with Satya also visiting London. We’re spending this week meeting with customers, partners, developers and government leaders. We’ll talk about how the Microsoft Cloud is driving the transformation of businesses and industries across Europe and around the world. We’ll talk about how our customers have harnessed … Read more »

Our search warrant case: An important decision for people everywhere

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

We obviously welcome today’s decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision is important for three reasons: it ensures that people’s privacy rights are protected by the laws of their own countries; it helps ensure that the legal protections of the physical world apply in the digital domain; and it paves the way for better solutions to address both privacy and law enforcement needs.

Greener datacenters for a brighter future: Microsoft’s commitment to renewable energy

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

As the world increasingly races to a future based on cloud computing, a host of new and important public issues are emerging. One of these issues involves the energy and sustainability practices of the datacenters that power the cloud. Over the past year we’ve spent considerable time focusing on our work in this area at Microsoft, and I wanted to share today where were heading.

The Collapse of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor: Solving the New Privacy Rubik’s Cube

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

When people who care about technology look back at the year 2015, they will remember October as the month when the EU-U.S. Safe Harbor collapsed. An international legal agreement that has been in place for 15 years was invalidated in a single day. On October 6, the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down an international legal regime that over 4,000 companies have been relying upon not just … Read more »

Latest World Economic Forum report: Bringing benefits of the digital economy to all

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

Expanding our vibrant digital economy and empowering everyone to realize its benefits is an important goal – and one that requires collaboration between many players. That’s why we have participated in the World Economic Forum’s Digital Infrastructure and Applications 2020+ initiative for the past two years. We’ve worked together with industry partners – including network operators, equipment vendors and other application providers – to identify common goals and productive actions … Read more »

Microsoft adopts first international cloud privacy standard

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

Today marks a major milestone, as Microsoft is the first major cloud provider to adopt the world’s first international standard for cloud privacy. It’s another reason customers can move with confidence to the Microsoft Cloud. The standard in question may seem technical, but it has important practical benefits for enterprise customers around the world. It’s known as ISO/IEC 27018, and it was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) … Read more »

Government of Ireland, European MEP file amicus briefs in New York privacy case

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

This year one of our priorities has been to advocate for policies that ensure people around the world can trust technology. Keeping this trust is not only important for global technology companies, but vital for ensuring people everywhere can use technology with confidence. One important aspect of ensuring this trust is for likeminded governments to agree on basic principles for sharing data across borders while respecting local privacy laws. The … Read more »

New milestone in the conversation about electronic privacy laws

- Brad Smith - President and Chief Legal Officer

Last December, we joined a number of companies in our industry and urged governments to restore customer confidence in information technology by reforming their electronic privacy laws. While there has been important progress, much remains to be done. Today marks a key milestone, as Senators Hatch, Coons and Heller have introduced important legislation to strengthen the protection of Constitutional due process rights and limit the extraterritorial reach of search warrants.