Caspar Bowden, who has died from melanoma aged 53, was a British data privacy campaigner who turned from poacher to gamekeeper when he took a job as head of privacy for Microsoft’s non-US operations in 2002.
But he was dismissed from the organisation in 2011, two years before Edward Snowden was to leak documents showing that Microsoft and other internet giants had turned over user data to a US surveillance program called Prism. Bowden warned that personal information stored by non-US internet users on “cloud” computing services such as Google Drive could be spied on routinely without their knowledge by the US National Security Agency, under Section 702 of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act authorises mass-surveillance of the data of non-Americans and gives the NSA the power to issue orders to companies under US jurisdiction, such as Microsoft, requiring them to disclose “foreign intelligence information” from sources such as emails and other stored data. The act, Bowden alleged, discriminated against non-US internet users, making them “guilty of being foreigners”.
Following the Snowden revelations, several companies identified in the leaked documents claimed they had no knowledge of the Prism program and denied making information available to the US security authorities on the scale alleged. Microsoft explained that it had only provided data in response to legally binding orders relating to specific accounts, and that it was not involved in any broader voluntary national security programme to gather customer data.
Bowden, however, remained unconvinced and in 2013 revealed that he had stopped using Microsoft products in favour of open source software and had not owned a mobile phone for two years. The NSA’s surveillance efforts, he suggested, were a threat to democracy: “We’re living through a transformation in surveillance power that’s never been seen before on earth. And we don’t know what type of government or leader will come to power next and exploit it. It could be the next president. It could be this one.”
Caspar Pemberton Scott Bowden was born on August 19 1961 and was fascinated by technology from childhood, building his own computer at 14. After studying Mathematics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and a few years as a self-employed “inventor”, he worked as an analyst with Goldman Sachs.
In the run-up to the 1997 general election, as chairman of Scientists for Labour, he urged the party to make personal data protection a high priority. But he later became a vehement critic of the New Labour government’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, arguing that it was an internet snoopers’ charter.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) became law in 2000, but not before Bowden had campaigned successfully to remove “Big Browser” surveillance powers under which security agencies would have been granted authority to access individuals’ “clickstream” browsing habits, and to ensure the burden of proof was not put on to individuals who might have forgotten passwords later demanded by police.
After leaving Microsoft in 2011, Bowden turned his energies to the EU, warning that US security authorities were exploiting European reliance on cloud computing services to monitor its data. He proposed that the EU should develop an industrial policy for its own Cloud industry, based on open-source software, and that internet users should be warned when they log on to services based in the US that they may be under surveillance.
After the Snowden revelations, Bowden became an adviser to the European Parliament on data privacy issues.
Caspar Bowden is survived by his wife Sandi.
Caspar Bowden, born August 19 1961, died July 9 2015
