Microsoft offers reassurances on data privacy for civil servants on Copilot

Public data accessed by Microsoft artificial intelligence tools, as part of a new agreement with the government, will not be sent out of the EU, a top executive for the tech giant has said.

Last week, the government announced it had signed a €4 million deal with the US tech company to make its Copilot artificial intelligence tool available to civil servants.

Promising to improve and speed up the work of public servants, Copilot will help government workers draft documents, find information and even improve decision-making, according to Microsoft general manager for South-East Europe Kristina Tikhonova.

The deal will also see the possible introduction of a public-facing AI chatbot to “tremendously improve” government communication and help people find information on public services, she said.

Responding to Times of Malta questions about data privacy, Tikhonova said “.. it’s always the customer that decides what to do with the data”.

She said not all government data would be shared with Copilot, with the government deciding which data will be accessed by the AI.

The public-facing chatbot, featuring male and female AI avatars – sporting typical Mediterranean features chosen by MITA – can ‘speak’ to users in both English and Maltese, with Tikhonova describing offering conversations in Maltese as a “huge step ahead”.

Although the chatbot does not allow users to browse the wider internet, it allows the public to search for information on government services such as tax return deadlines.

Asked whether the chatbot might put customer service jobs at risk, Tikhonova said that while she believed many working “in call centres would love to aspire to do something more creative”, Copilot was designed to help users with existing tasks and not replace them.

“AI is no different to any other technological revolution which significantly transformed the future of jobs... But it’s our responsibility as humans to take this opportunity, because we need to train ourselves,” she said.

US President Donald Trump in February blasted the EU’s Digital Markets Act as “overseas extortion” amid a charge to protect tech giants from what he sees as unfair taxation. 

Can European stakeholders trust US tech companies in such a climate?

“We are not in politics, but we are all impacted by the politics,” she said, while stressing Microsoft had invested “billions” in data centres in the UK and France.

Correction: A previous version of this article based on information provided by Microsoft, said public data information would be held in Malta, that it was owned by MITA and that an AI chatbot would be introduced. The article has been amended following clarifications provided by Microsoft.