Book review: Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age by Brad Smith

 

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age by Brad Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author, Brad Smith, was General Counsel for Microsoft (he was also President of Microsoft, but his role as counsel is more relevant for this book). The book is a discussion of privacy in a context where governments and large corporations hold immense amounts of personal and business data, and there is a large temptation for corporations to take advantage of that knowledge or governments to access that information, for governments in pursuit of legal action or suppression. So much of the book is about cases that involved Microsoft and how they developed a stance on corporate responsibilities to their customers on privacy matters, specifically in cases where government demanded customer data.

Each chapter revolves around a policy argument that played out in public forums, regulatory, legislative, and in the courts in the U.S. and Europe. And it is in a backdrop where technology companies used to believe that as technology companies they did not have an interest in policy. But as companies became less sellers of goods and more providers of services, in particular of data storage and cloud based communications services, they became targets of government and criminal action to access customer data without consent. In each chapter Smith introduces the context, then introduces a historical principal that predated cloud computing, and he makes the argument that the choices and policies used to govern oud based computing services should be the same that governed the same type of services in the pre-digital age.

The overall philosophy he gives is that Microsoft is a custodian of customer's data, not the owner. And as custodian it will protect the customer's property (data). And throughout the book he identifies allies (who have similar philosophies of protecting customer's/citizen's property and privacy) who only differ in details. And those that he as to be contentious with, because they are seeking to use and profit from individuals data or desire access for investigations. (and Microsoft in these cases wants a transparent process for doing this what protects their customers, who have the rights of citizens/residents)

Clearly, Smith is proud off his work, and believes that protecting the privacy of Microsoft customers, even in the face of government pressure, is the right thing to do (with a procedure for governments to prevent harm to other citizen's rights, life, or property. But he does acknowledge allies, Google and several European governments come across very well here. So a reader has to be mindful that he does have rose colored glasses on Microsoft's journey in this topic.

I appreciate the view of a non-technology person on these topics. As he is a lawyer, his perspective is to look at issues that seem very new because of the pace of technology change, and recognize that the issues have existed and debated before the digital age. As the infrastructure is owned by multi-national corporations, the relative power of industry and government is different. But the idea that industry desiring to protect the interests of their customers and government desiring the safety of its citizens should align is one worth engaging in.

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