Many of the world’s most challenging issues require collaboration between governments and industry. Government policies affect the welfare of our employees, the prosperity of our communities, and the ability of our customers to acquire and use the best technology. For these reasons, Splunk engages with government entities in the U.S. and other countries on a range of public policy issues, including the following:
As cyber threats continue to grow in sophistication and severity, governments around the world will continue to develop and implement policies affecting critical infrastructure and the cybersecurity ecosystem. If they take the correct form, these policies can encourage companies, government agencies and other organizations to adopt best-in-class solutions for improving their cybersecurity posture, making us all safer. Splunk supports government policies that encourage adequate investment in modern cybersecurity capabilities, the application of best practices and productive government-industry information sharing.
U.S. software companies and their customers depend on the ability to transfer data around the world, and on equitable market access in other countries. Splunk supports digital trade provisions that help ensure data can be transferred across borders, minimize restrictions on where data can be stored and processed, prohibit discriminatory rules such as digital service taxes from being applied to digital products, and limit requirements to disclose proprietary source code and algorithms.
Government organizations are faced with the difficult task of keeping up with evolving technology in a budget-constrained environment while they seek to achieve mission success. Splunk supports government policies that encourage the procurement of best-in-class commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software solutions to the maximum extent practicable in place of building customized software solutions. In addition, Splunk believes that national governments should seek to harmonize procurement regulations, standards and certifications for cloud offerings between countries where possible.
Splunk supports the adoption of cloud solutions by government organizations as well as the private sector. Cloud computing services have the ability to provide scale, security and cost savings. Splunk is in favor of an internationally harmonized regime of laws and regulations that facilitate cloud computing. This would include appropriate policies related to market access, data privacy and cross-border data flows.
In the United States, Splunk supports the development and adoption of a single, clear set of strong federal standards governing consumer data privacy. Globally, data privacy policies should support the free flow of data across international borders so cloud computing and other valuable data services can flourish. Splunk invests in governance and technology to protect the data that our customers have entrusted to us, and we support policy to have other organizations do the same.
The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential to improve business processes and services for citizens, but there are a number of complex issues associated with its adoption. Splunk supports a flexible policy framework that builds confidence and trust in AI systems, encourages investment in research and development, strengthens cybersecurity and privacy protections, allows the workforce to transition successfully to the new job environment, and takes into account different types of AI and machine learning to avoid hampering innovation unnecessarily.
