Microsoft Chief Backs Federal Privacy Law Over State Efforts

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called for national privacy legislation, according to Bloomberg. “We hope that there’s more of a national privacy law,“ Nadella said in an interview. He characterized privacy as “a human right.“

Tech companies are already facing tough new European privacy rules that went into effect in May, while California passed a strict data privacy law in June. A national law is preferable to legislation forged by individual states and would reduce “transactional costs“ to the benefit of companies large and small, Nadella said.

His comments reflect growing ferment around privacy following failures by tech companies. Nadella also addressed cybersecurity issues, and said Microsoft wasn’t affected by a hack that involved tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the U.S. “We’re very confident that we have no exposure,“ Nadella said.