A new report shared by DNA Money claims that Microsoft disclosed the personal financial details of Indian customers with US Intelligence Agencies.

The report stated that the consumer data with banks who moved to Microsoft Office 365 was shared by the company with the US Intelligence Agencies. The report also stated that the consumers weren’t aware that their data was shared with the Intelligence Agencies.

All the mailboxes had been migrated to office 365 Microsoft cloud environment. It was gathered from the Microsoft transparency hub that Microsoft is bound to share customers’ data under US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and US national security letters as and when required by the US authorities. – Reserve Bank of India

The report disclosed that Microsoft did disclose information on at least 3,036 occasions after more than 4,000 government requests or legal demand requests for Indian customers in the US. According to the agreement Microsoft had with Indian Banks, the company was allowed to access and share data only if the order was issued by the Indian government or an Indian court.

No government has direct access to any of our users’ data. Data privacy is a top priority for us. We never provide customer data unless we receive a legally valid warrant, order or subpoena about specific accounts or individual identifiers that we have reviewed and considered legally appropriate and consistent with the rule of law and our Microsoft principles. Absent extraordinary circumstances, in the vast majority of cases we redirect governments to seek data directly from commercial customers or to allow us to tell our commercial customers when the government seeks their data. – Microsoft Spokesperson

Banks like State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have also responded to the report. According to SBI, no data was accessed or shared with Microsoft in the past couple of years while Bank of Baroda stated that protecting the interests of their customers is of paramount importance to them.

Via: India.com