So much has changed in the field of the privacy professional since the formation of IAPP. My first time at an IAPP event, I recall there were barely 50 people in the room and we felt like there were only a few companies focused on these issues. This week more than 3,000 privacy professionals from around the world came together for the Global Privacy Summit, and the issues we discussed are front and center every day in the minds of citizens, government officials, and company leaders.

Privacy is one of the defining issues of our time. As many speakers this week pointed out, technology has the potential to transform not just business and productivity, but so many other aspects of our lives, from agriculture to manufacturing and from medicine to education. But as technology evolves, it can only deliver on this promise if we can solve the privacy challenges this new technology can bring. Privacy professionals like those attending this week’s summit are on the front lines of these difficult and vital issues every day.

For example, as organizations move to the cloud for all the benefits that it brings, they also need to ensure they are protecting their – and their customers’ – data, and meeting their continuing compliance needs. At Microsoft, we are working every day to earn our customers’ trust by building cloud services that meet the highest standards for security, privacy and compliance, and by our ongoing commitment to transparency in our efforts.

But we also know that privacy professionals like you who are guiding these decisions need more information and resources. That’s why we are redoubling our efforts to support the privacy community with more tools to help further your vital work in privacy, compliance and data security. In the months ahead, we will roll out four new initiatives, all of which can be easily accessed through a central portal, along with an open letter to the community from Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith, at: www.MicrosoftCloudAssurance.com.

• A comprehensive repository of information and training resources designed to help you understand, achieve and verify the compliance requirements of your organization’s cloud deployments. This is available today here.
• Roundtable events around the world to discuss the urgent compliance issues, including data security; personal information privacy for consumers, employees, and students; compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the EU General Data Protection Regulation; compliance with regulations governing the financial services, health care, government, and education sectors; and how we will stand with you on the issues of government access and encryption.
• New investments in training programs that focus on the skills and knowledge compliance professionals need to oversee safe, secure and compliant cloud deployments.
• Regular updates to the community on our efforts to strengthen the privacy, security and compliance protections of the Microsoft cloud, including information about progress and problems, and concrete proposals for improvement so that your organization can move forward with confidence.

We hope these tools will prove to be valuable as you continue in your important work. We want to hear from you about what works, what doesn’t, and the additional tools and resources that you would find useful. 

We also released new informational resources for our customers this week at http://privacy.microsoft.com. Here, you can learn more about Microsoft’s overall approach to privacy, including the privacy principles that govern all of our engineering and business decisions. Although these resources are new, they don’t reflect changes in our policies, but are rather part of our ongoing efforts to provide helpful information and transparency about our approach.

There is a lot of difficult and important work ahead. I was humbled by the great conversations I had the privilege to take part in this week and am energized by the possibility of the positive change our community is in a position to effect in the world. As Brad Smith said in his keynote, privacy is a fundamental human right, a cause and a profession. It’s clear from the large number of committed and talented people in IAPP that both the cause and the profession are in good hands.