Microsoft has announced that the ‘Personal Vault’ security features for its OneDrive storage service are now available worldwide on all OneDrive consumer accounts.

What Is Personal Vault?

Personal Vault is a protected area in OneDrive that can only be accessed with a strong authentication method or a second step of identity verification.  These methods include a fingerprint, face, PIN, or a code sent to the OneDrive user via email or SMS.

The idea of Personal Vault is to add another layer of protection to important files, photos, and videos e.g. copies of documents such as a passport, driver’s licence, or insurance information. Even though the new feature means that users must go through a verification process, Microsoft has stressed that it won’t slow users down and that they should still be able to quickly access their files on a PC, OneDrive.com or on their mobile device.

Protection Against Lost, Stolen, or Unauthorised Access

The Personal Vault security measures should mean that files are not being stored unprotected on a PC and have additional protection, even if the Windows 10 PC or mobile device is lost, stolen, or if someone gains access to it or to the user’s account.

Other Security Measures

In addition to the second layer of identity verification, Personal Vault also includes security measures such as :

• Scan and shoot, which enables documents to be scanned or photos to be shot directly into the secure Personal Vault area rather than leaving them on a camera or unsecured device.
• Automatic locking of the Personal Vault after a period of inactivity to protect against private files being left open accidentally.
• BitLocker encryption on Windows 10 PCs, so that all Personal Vault files are synced to a BitLocker-encrypted area of the local hard drive.
• Restricted sharing so that Personal Vault and shared items moved into Personal Vault can’t be shared.

Some Limitations

Personal Vault does come with some limitations. For example, users with OneDrive’s free or standalone 100GB storage plan can store up to three files in Personal Vault, and Office 365 subscribers can store as many files as they wish as long as this doesn’t exceed their normal storage limits.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For Microsoft Personal Vault, this is another step in its competition with its most popular competitor, Dropbox, which recently partnered with BetterCloud to help with it provide cutting-edge data protection and orchestration.

For businesses using OneDrive, these new security features should prove attractive, particularly when most businesses need safe, fast Cloud storage for mobile devices and work PCs, and need an easy, reliable and convenient way to store sensitive and personal files and data.

Microsoft has announced that its Windows Virtual Desktop is now generally available worldwide on Azure and will include Windows 7 free Extended Security Updates for up to three years.

Windows Virtual Desktop

Windows Virtual Desktop from Microsoft, which was announced last September but has just been made generally available worldwide, is a Cloud-based ‘virtual’ version of Windows that can be accessed by employees from any device from anywhere, provides full multi-session, and is always up to date.  The Virtual Desktop has been designed with modern working practice in mind where not all employees sit in an office, use just one device or work from secure locations.

According to Microsoft, Windows Virtual Desktop is the only virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that can provide simplified management, multi-session Windows 10, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, as well as and support for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environments.

The Virtual Desktop enables Windows desktops and apps to be deployed and scaled on Microsoft’s Azure portal in minutes, and it includes built-in security and compliance features.

Supported Transition to Windows 10

One key sweetener of the new service for those companies facing the end of support for their old Windows 7 deployments is that it offers free extended security updates for the Windows 7 virtual desktop including more support options for previous app versions while users transition to Windows 10.

Migrate

Microsoft is keen to emphasise that its Virtual Desktop can work with your current Remote Desktop Services (RDS), and can therefore easily be migrated on Azure.

Trust

Microsoft is also keen to emphasise that businesses can trust the new Windows Virtual Desktop not least because Microsoft invests more than USD $1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development, employs 3,500+ security experts, and Azure has more compliance certifications than any other cloud provider.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With Virtual Desktop, Microsoft is hoping to capitalise on the fact that many businesses have workers in multiple locations with multiple devices who need to have convenient and secure access to a constantly updated version of their desktop.  Microsoft also knows that companies are getting more confident about moving more of their infrastructure to the Cloud, and want a secure, scalable ‘as-as-Service’ offering where they don’t need to worry about having the expertise in-house.

The easy migration aspect of the service and the offer of extended Windows 7 support may be of value to businesses looking to make a leveraged move forward to Windows 10 and may help Microsoft retain valuable business customers.

A recent ruling by the High Court that an email containing an automated signature is legally binding proved costly to the lawyer who sent such an email on behalf of his client that included the wrong price for a land sale.

£25,000 Below

The unfortunate lawyer, Daniel Tear, who sent an email to another lawyer setting out the terms for an owner’s land/property sale (but with the sale price listed as £25,000 lower than the asking price) the ruling about his email signature at the County Court in Manchester proved to be very costly.

In the case, which related to a dispute over the sale of land near Lake Windermere listed as a “jetty/boat landing plot/mooring”, it has been reported that the land should have been offered for sale at the asking price of £200,000 but (according to published court documents) but Mr Tear’s email to the lawyer of those wishing to purchase the land specified a price of “ £175,000 (one hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds”.

The lawyer acting for the buyer accepted the deal, and despite Mr Tear later emailing all the parties to say the deal had not been finalised by email, the court ruling went against him and his client.

Why?

According to the published court documents which refer to matters related to certain sections of the Law of Property Act of 1989, Mr Tear’s auto-signature (using Microsoft Outlook) which appeared at the bottom of his email, accompanied by the words “Many Thanks” (which link the email’s contents to the signature) were enough to make the contents of the email’s agreement binding.

In a hearing which considered the many difficulties around an email footer possibly being treated as a sufficient act of signing the judge stated that he was “satisfied that Mr Tear signed the relevant email on behalf of the Defendant” and that “the Claimants are entitled to the order for specific performance that is sought”.

Mr Tear’s argument that the case fell under Section 2 (1) of the Law of Property Act of 1989 i.e. “The document incorporating the terms or, where contracts are exchanged, one of the documents incorporating them (but not necessarily the same one) must be signed by or on behalf of each party to the contract” was, therefore, not accepted by the court.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

As with most legal matters, if you read the court documents (here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2019/2462.html) there were many different considerations based around the case. One thing that businesses can take away from this case, however, is that if you create and add an email signature section to the footer of your Outlook emails, even though it is automatically added to each of your emails, it may still prove to be enough to legally bind you to the contents of the email, even though you may have made a mistake. It goes without saying, therefore, that businesses need to be very careful to check that prices and quotes emails to clients (where an email signature is included) are correct and that any terms are clearly stated.  This ruling could now and in future have implications for many businesses in disputes relating to the contents of business emails.

Reports of the first job interviews conducted in the UK using Artificial Intelligence and facial analysis technology have been met with mixed reactions.

The Software

The AI and facial analysis technology used for the interviews comes from US firm HireVue. The main products available from HireVue for interviewing are Pre-Employment Assessments and Video Interviewing.

For the Pre-Employment Assessments, the software uses AI, video game technology, and game-based and coding challenges to collect candidate insights related to work style, how the candidate works with people, and general cognitive ability. The Assessments are customisable to specific hiring objectives or ready to deploy based on pre-validated models. The data points are analysed by HireVue’s proprietary machine learning algorithms, and the insights gained are intended to enable businesses to save time and use recruitment resources more effectively by enabling businesses to quickly prioritise which candidates to shortlist for interviews.

The Video Interviewing product uses real-time evaluation tools and can assess around 25,000 data points in one interview.  During interviews, candidates are asked to answer pre-scripted questions with HireVue Live offering a real-time collaborative video interview that can involve a whole recruitment team. The benefits of on-demand video-based assessments, which can be conducted in less than 30 minutes, are that recruiters and managers don’t have to synchronize candidates and calendars, and can evaluate more candidates, thereby being able to spend their time deciding between the best candidates.

Who Is Using The Software?

According to HireVue, 700+ companies use the software (not all in the UK) including Vodafone, Urban Outfitters, Intel, Ikea, Hilton, Unilever, Singapore Airlines, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. It has been reported, however, that the technology has already been used for 100,000 interviews in the UK.

Concerns

Even though there are obvious on-demand expertise, time and cost savings for companies, and HireVue displays case studies from satisfied customers on its website, AI and facial analysis technology use in interviews has been met with criticism by privacy and rights groups.

For example, it has been reported that Big Brother Watch representatives have voiced concerns about the ethics of using this method, possible bias and discrimination (if the AI hasn’t been trained on a diverse-enough range of people), and that unconventional but still good potential candidates could fall foul of algorithms that can’t take account of the complexities of human speech, body language and expression.

Robot Interviewer

Back in March, it was reported that TNG and Furhat Robotics in Sweden have developed a social, unbiased recruitment robot called “Tengai” that can be used to conduct job interviews with human candidates. The basic robot was developed several years ago and looks like an internally projected human face on a white head sitting on top of a speaker (with camera and microphone built-in).  The robot is made with pre-built expressions and gestures as part of a pre-loaded OS which can be further customised to fit any character, and the HR-tech application software that Tengai uses means that it can conduct situation and skill-based interviews in a way that is as close as possible to a human interviewer. This includes using “hum”, nodding its head, and asking follow-up questions.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Like the Swedish Tengai robot Interviews, the HireVue Pre-Employment Assessment (and possibly the video) appear to be have been designed to be used at the early part of the recruitment process as a way of enabling big companies to quickly create a shortlist of candidates to focus on. As businesses become used to, and realise the value of outsourcing as a way of making better use of resources and buying in scalable and on-demand skills and resources, it appears that bigger companies are also willing to trust new technology to the point where they outsource expertise and human judgement in exchange for the promise of better, and more cost-effective recruitment management.

AI, facial recognition, and other related new technologies and algorithms are being trusted and adopted more by big businesses which also need to remember, for the benefit of themselves and their customers and job candidates that they need to make sure that bias is minimised, and that technology is unlikely to be able to pick up on every (potentially important) nuance of human behaviour and speech.  It should never be forgotten that we each have the most powerful, amazing and perceptive ‘computer’ available in the form of our own brain, and for vast amount of medium and small businesses that probably can’t afford or don’t want to use AI to choose recruits, experienced human interviewers can also make good recruitment decisions.

That said, as technology progresses, AI-based recruitment systems are likely to improve by gaining their own experience, and be augmented, and become more widely available and affordable to the point that they become a standard first challenge for job applicants in many situations.

Research from techUK shows that less than half of small UK businesses consider themselves to be ready to face a no-deal Brexit on 31 October, whereas 87% of larger businesses think they are prepared.

Small and Medium

The techUK research shows that only 43% of UK small businesses think they are ready for the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, which is not too different to the mere 50% of medium-sized companies that expressed readiness.

Not Up To Date With Government Guidance

The survey revealed that although most enterprises are aware that the government has given guidance on getting ready for a no-deal Brexit, only 30% of small businesses and 33% of medium-sized businesses regard themselves as being up to date with that guidance.

Popular Concerns

In addition to the impact on the UK economy, some of the popular concerns that many businesses have about a no-deal Brexit include how they stand in terms of regulatory plus any extra regulatory barriers that may hinder trade compliance, and difficulty in finding staff after an end to freedom of movement (there is already a tech skills shortage and tech ‘brain drain’).  Also, businesses are clearly worried about post-Brexit relationships with suppliers, whether contracts will need to be updated, and whether they will have enough of the right raw materials and parts to keep production running smoothly and meet their customer demands while keeping their costs and prices down.

Data Protection Guidance For Brexit

As far as being prepared to stay compliant with data protection laws, the ICO has recently stated that if a UK business or organisation already complies with the GDPR and has no contacts or customers in the EEA, that business or organisation doesn’t need to do much more to prepare for data protection compliance after Brexit.

The latest guidance for businesses facing a no-deal Brexit can be found on the website here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-and-brexit/data-protection-and-brexit-for-small-organisations/

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It doesn’t take a study to find out that there is still a great deal of uncertainty about trading post-Brexit, particularly after the impact of a no-deal Brexit. As the businesses in the study indicated, many are aware that there is guidance available from government sources and that SMEs don’t appear to be up to date with that guidance.  It is good, at least, that the ICO has issued clear, easily accessible guidance on its website to help companies prepare to remain GDPR compliant after Brexit. Other Brexit guidance for small businesses can be found on the FSB website here https://www.fsb.org.uk/standing-up-for-you/brexit/resources  and on the main UK government website here https://www.gov.uk/find-eu-exit-guidance-business.