Google, Microsoft teams work to keep pace with privacy laws

Executives from Microsoft and Google gave a glimpse into the size of their privacy organizations, which are required for the companies to try to avoid running afoul of complicated U.S. privacy regulations and prepare for changes coming to privacy laws around the globe.

Microsoft has 40 people fully dedicated to working on privacy issues and another 400 who might spend some time on privacy, said Michael Hintze, associate general counsel at Microsoft. Google has a team of about 60 engineers fully devoted to privacy, said Keith Enright, senior privacy counsel. They work across all of Google's products. At Google, the engineers work on developing products and then the legal team steps in to examine them, he said. In addition to its privacy engineers and legal pros, Google also now employs Anne Toth, formerly Yahoo's chief trust officer, who oversees privacy in Google+, Enright said. The size of the teams is an indication of what's required today to keep pace with data privacy issues, said Kate Spelman, an attorney with Cobalt LLP. "People used to believe you could dip into privacy issues now and again," she said. "We've decided that's not possible any more. There is no ability to dabble in privacy." Instead, companies are hiring lawyers who are dedicated to handling data privacy.