hello everyone my name is elin
shivoh i am senior advisor on digital
policy at the european people's party in
brussels and today joining us
at the globsec brettislava forum 2021
is brad smith president of microsoft
brad smith
it's an honor and a true pleasure to
welcome you as part of the globe segment
forum 2021
thank you so much for joining us today
well thank you it's nice to see you
again and i feel like we're almost in
the same room but
not the way we were the last time i was
in brussels and i i look forward to my
next trip
and we're looking forward to seeing you
in brussels again and i think i can
speak for the entire team when saying
that the forum is grateful
for this opportunity to hear your
insights today on how we can bridge the
gap
on the you know the digital marketplace
through a renewed or refreshed eu
us data agenda now the covid19 pandemic
has accelerated the use of the
technologies now we've used it to
control the virus
and it's spread and also on research and
we've developed those effective
vaccines but also to ensure that people
could stay connected
and safe online as well at home so
clearly digital
was here to help and to avoid further
disruptions
and just as clear as how technology is
what will help us
dealing with the consequences of of the
pandemic you know to reboot our economy
and restart
uh you know with the recovery if we
allow of course the technology to
flourish so we really have
this great opportunity to better manage
and foster the efficient use
and sound deployment of technology so in
this context
there's great momentum especially this
week when it comes to digital policy in
the relations between the us and the eu
and i'd like to start by asking you why
do you think this transatlantic
partnership and this dialogue are so
important
in this what should be its role in
restarting the the economy especially in
the digital
era and and also what are the conditions
that the us and eu
should enable together in the data
economy for
for us you know to to be able to use
technologies better and quicker perhaps
even to predict future crisis
well first of all i think you've framed
the issue really well and just when we
think about where we are in the world
today
as you put it you know the world runs on
digital technology the world runs on
data
and that's true for each of the
communities and countries in which we
live
and it's going to become each even more
vital
each and every year i think the first
thing we have to do is just
ensure that the issues around digital
technology and data
are indeed playing a central visible
explicit role in the eu
us agenda we won't deal with these
issues well if we don't give them the
attention that they deserve
second i think we need to recognize that
the flow of data across the atlantic
is perhaps even more important than the
flow of people and the flow of people is
something we've been suffering from a
lack of and
we need to get people and data
continuing to move on an ongoing basis
to do that we need to recognize i think
a third thing
and that's the critical need to put in
place
common or at least consistent rules
that really respect the values on each
side of the atlantic
certainly in europe data needs to be
protected in a manner that is consistent
with european values that conforms with
european law
of course i like to remind my friends in
the united states where i live that
our american values frankly are rooted
in european values they
come from europe and i think we need to
then start to work through the specific
challenges
and take them one by one recognizing
that some of them are hard
but we need to make progress across the
board
thank you very much and let's hope the
message will come clear
uh to uh to the u.s and the eu as their
meeting in brussels
now with this new biden administration
transatlantic partnership and relations
seem to be back on track and
both partners seem to be rooting for you
know fresher and stronger dialogue
on tech and trade but let's be honest
there are some unresolved
critical issues let's let's let's
use that term when it comes to data
governance so what do you think should
be maybe the
well if you have one or two main
priorities that both partners
uh must really address to preserve and
strengthen their relations and their
impact and maybe some of the concrete
ways in which they should do so maybe
you know what kind of data governance or
agreements could help us
through it well i i do think that things
are moving in a common and positive
direction and you see governments on
both sides of the atlantic
that want to work together that want to
make things work and i think that's
welcome news
for everyone because we all depend on
this flow of data
i think the clear starting point frankly
needs to be
to come to terms with the issues that
are front and center in the wake of the
shrems ii decision we are
dealing with something that is just sort
of one step
short of a genuine crisis in the ability
to move data across the atlantic the
ability of european companies
to do business in the united states the
ability of my company to do business in
europe and support european customers
so i think the sooner we can get
something in place that both sides of
the atlantic feel good about
the better but i also think that we not
only need to move
fast we need to act with a level of
ambition
the issues that we're seeing around data
and privacy
are obviously sort of going around and
around again we've been at this now for
multiple years
as the safe harbor was replaced by the
privacy shield and now we're at it again
and i think what it really requires is
that we put in place a
longer term deeper and more stable
agreement between governments
i think this can build on the statutory
foundation in the cloud act that was
passed by the u.s congress in 2017 that
creates the legal authority for the
executive branch
to enter into an agreement with say
european governments to negotiate with
the european commission uh and i think
we need to look even
more broadly than that i think that that
we may have a period of time
where the u.s has to consider some
statutory changes
but we just have to rebuild the
foundation
so that there is the kind of trust that
the transatlantic relationship really
requires
yeah absolutely and i think we uh we
will have heard uh
from the commission and the u.s
administration that there is definitely
a handshake
that's really about to materialize
through this u.s eu
tech and trade transatlantic council and
there are
many areas where both can collaborate
i have a question actually still on this
uh because you know in your your
wonderful book tools and weapons which
you published in in 2019
you wrote to regulate technologies that
are bigger than themselves governments
will need to work together and indeed
there are various areas for mutual
engagement on which
you know would be critical for the eu
and the us to work together you know it
would be
mutually beneficial in order to pull
resources you know share each other's uh
us assets and strength and we have many
but it will
also be indispensable for our respective
resilience and our agenda i know the
eu is rooting for strategic autonomy for
instance
now in the pandemic we've seen how our
critical systems and our infrastructure
have come under attack you know with
disrupted operations especially towards
vital infrastructure like hospitals what
are some of the ways in which you
believe
the tech industry and in particular
microsoft can play
a supportive role in ensuring um you
know more resilience in cyber security
globally but also of course acting as a
bridge
as part of the transatlantic relations
well i think it's a really
interesting question and one of the
things i would just start with
is at a time when there is rightly so
much discussion about digital
sovereignty
we should recognize that there is no
digital sovereignty without
cyber security and we really need to
strengthen cyber security protection
around the world and across the board um
certainly i think that responsibility in
many ways is on our shoulders
at microsoft and other tech companies we
need to keep
strengthening the features that provide
cybersecurity protection
and i think even more than that we need
to keep making these features
easier for organizations and companies
and governments and individuals to use
the second thing that i just think has
been so
noteworthy over the last six months is
that every time we've really dug deep to
understand what happened with the cyber
attack and we
really worked with customers to see you
know what had happened within their
networks
what we found was a common trait
people became victims in large part
because they did not necessarily deploy
all of the protections that exist
already so
i think we need to help governments and
businesses large and small
ngos use a short but
critical list of features if people are
going to run their software on a server
in their own building
they have to be patching the server
better yet they should probably move to
the cloud so they don't have to keep
patching their machines and a
company that runs cloud services will do
so instead
it's just an imperative that we have
customers
that are using anti-malware and using it
on
all of their machines that they're using
multi-factor
access that they're ensuring their
network administrators
follow what's called lease privilege
access meaning they only have access to
the part of the network that they need
to work on
yet they're running on the principles of
what we call a zero trust environment
in other words run your network on the
assumption that
someday someone will get inside it but
don't let them run
wild when they're there so you tie down
your devices with the kinds of services
that we and others
run and perhaps above all else use the
authentication
keys the keys that are used the password
so to speak by your administrators
to you know manage and access your your
email your documents
store them in a secure location either
on a secure hardware device or
in the cloud if there's one thing that i
think so
many of the attendees of this meeting
share in common
is that frankly almost all of you are
high
on the list of priorities
for an attack we follow this every day
from russia from iran from china from
north korea
and people who work in government people
who work for think tanks people who work
at ngos
yeah you need to think about this
because believe me unfortunately
our adversaries are thinking about you
thank you so much uh brett smith yeah
it's been a difficult year uh
for you know cyber security but i think
both the eu and the us are taking it
seriously i actually
believe the u.s has elevated cyber hacks
to the same level as terrorism
in terms of the threat and i liked how
you recall the role of
tech industry in this by making sure all
these agreements don't remain just
a political high-level exercise
so thank you very much for all these
insights and for being
with us today it was a privilege well
thank you it's great conversation and uh
it's great to be here with everyone
thank you very much
thank you very much thank you very much
you all um for
following us um now we're going back to
bratislava
i'd like to wish everyone on behalf of
the great globsec
team a wonderful event and i hope you
will enjoy taking part in those
insightful and stimulating conversations
we hope to see you soon thank you