Microsoft fulfilled the requirements of France within 45 minutes
Brad Smith, General Counsel of Microsoft, told how quickly his company was able to process a request from the French government to issue the contents of mailboxes suspected of committing a terrorist act as amended by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
As many know, on January 7 of this year, an armed attack was committed on the editorial board of Charlie Hebdo, as a result of which 12 people were shot, including two policemen. According to media reports, the reason for the attack was the appearance on Twitter of a caricature of the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created by the authors of the magazine.
In connection with the investigation of this incident, the French government, through the FBI, sent Microsoft a formal request to open the contents of the electronic correspondence of the suspects in the killings. Brad Smith says that after receiving such a request, Microsoft was convinced that it did not violate the law, received the necessary information and delivered it to the FBI office in New York. The whole procedure took the company 45 minutes.
Further, Smith literally concluded the following: if the government wants to distinguish between security and privacy, the best way to do this is to adopt appropriate laws, rather than sending requests to private companies. This will allow us to legally determine what is more significant - the safety of private data or public security, which requires their disclosure.
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This Smith passage to some extent echoes recent statements by British Prime Minister David Cameron: “Do we want to have such means of communication between people, which even with a warrant signed by the Minister of the Interior, we cannot read?”. Cameron promised that if his party comes to power in the next elections, this problem will be resolved by a ban on encrypted messaging on the Internet.
As many know, on January 7 of this year, an armed attack was committed on the editorial board of Charlie Hebdo, as a result of which 12 people were shot, including two policemen. According to media reports, the reason for the attack was the appearance on Twitter of a caricature of the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created by the authors of the magazine.
In connection with the investigation of this incident, the French government, through the FBI, sent Microsoft a formal request to open the contents of the electronic correspondence of the suspects in the killings. Brad Smith says that after receiving such a request, Microsoft was convinced that it did not violate the law, received the necessary information and delivered it to the FBI office in New York. The whole procedure took the company 45 minutes.
Further, Smith literally concluded the following: if the government wants to distinguish between security and privacy, the best way to do this is to adopt appropriate laws, rather than sending requests to private companies. This will allow us to legally determine what is more significant - the safety of private data or public security, which requires their disclosure.
')
This Smith passage to some extent echoes recent statements by British Prime Minister David Cameron: “Do we want to have such means of communication between people, which even with a warrant signed by the Minister of the Interior, we cannot read?”. Cameron promised that if his party comes to power in the next elections, this problem will be resolved by a ban on encrypted messaging on the Internet.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/375745/
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