Freshly returned from HP Discover 2014 in Las Vegas (or as freshly returned as you can be after two delayed five- and six- hour flights and an eight-hour time difference), I find that some of the things sticking in my mind from the event concern wider issues than product announcements.
In the second general session held on 11 June, HP recruited the services of Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Thomas Friedman (author of The World Is Flat) to chair a discussion with HP CEO Meg Whitman, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and Microsoft boss Satya Nadella (although he wasn’t in the room but on a video feed). Anyway you look at it, that’s quite a panel of industry heavyweights.
The quirky part was that at a conference where job losses at HP were barely mentioned or acknowledged, so much of the early stages of the panel discussion were focused on hiring and recruitment. I couldn’t help thinking HP might not have been entirely comfortable talking about hiring at a time when it is busy firing.
The panellists also had some interesting thoughts on the impact of Ed Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s surveillance programme. Nadella said it was a cause of friction for global companies like Microsoft, Intel and HP, and the US needed to regain the trust it had lost. He said it was likely that an element of the process of law would need to be brought into how the government could access data and what ability it had to access data held outside the US.
Krzanich was more ambitious, urging the US to take the lead in addressing the issues of data privacy and data intrusion, which were global concerns. The US government and the industry had an opportunity to be “seen around the world” as leaders in creating an environment that was open and transparent. “We can change this from a risk to an opportunity,” he said.
Protection
Coincidentally, a week to the day after the panel discussion, the Irish High Court opted to refer a case to the Court of Justice of the European Union which essentially calls for the court for review the safe harbour agreement between the US and the EU. The case concerns the alleged transfer of EU citizens’ data by Facebook to the NSA. While I don’t want to get bogged down in too much detail of the case, the referral by the Irish High Court raises questions over whether safe harbour has worked in ensuring the privacy of EU citizens has been adequately protected by US companies.
This follows on the heels of the judgement by US Magistrate Judge James Francis in New York in April that Internet service providers in the US could not refuse to surrender customer information and emails stored abroad if US law enforcement agencies served them with a valid search warrant.
The decision concerned a warrant served on Microsoft for a customer whose emails were stored on a server in Dublin. Yes, once again, little Ireland is involved. Microsoft has appealed the decision (and has since been joined by Apple, Cisco and AT&T, all of which have filed amicus curiae briefs in support).
While Krzanick’s sentiments are laudable, it’s hard to envision the US setting an example on data privacy and data intrusion to the rest of the world right now. Cynics might say it already has set an example, although not necessarily in the way that Krzanich would have liked it to. It may take a while before it’s in a position to set the right example. With so many other governments also complicit in surveillance activities, it may be that no government or industry can set the right example.
The problem for technology companies is that so many are US-owned and US-based, making them particularly vulnerable to their own law enforcement agencies and, by implication, exposing the data of their customers, not just in the US but worldwide, to those agencies.
But this also shows that Krzanich is right to call on the US to take a leading role on data privacy and data intrusion because if it doesn’t, it’s hard to see how it can reassure customers in Europe seeking to use technology or services provided by US companies that their privacy is protected to the same degree as it would be on this side of the Atlantic.
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