How Brexit Will Affect The IT Security Industry

Following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, Brian Spector, CEO at MIRACL commented below how this will affect his work force and the affect on the IT security industry as a whole.

Brian Spector, CEO at MIRACL:

 “As a start-up, one of our biggest challenges is finding enough great people who are passionate about creating great products and experiences.  We are a distributed organisation with employees based throughout Europe, and the prospect of having to apply for visas and fight our way through reams of red tape to access the highly-skilled workforce that’s essential to our business, could really slow us down. The UK start-up scene is fast and furious, and to disconnect it from the rest of Europe would be a backwards step.

The right to privacy is a highly developed area of law in Europe. If Britain were to leave the EU, and its extensive human rights legislation, it’s likely to make it easier for future governments to access our data as and when they choose. This could mean that any software made by a British company could soon be perceived to be facilitating government spying on its customers’ data. Leaving the EU could therefore have enormous repercussions by making it much harder for British technology and information security companies to compete globally. As a result, we might start to see UK information security companies start moving to countries, such as the Netherlands, which have a more supportive view of encryption as a means to protect the privacy of its citizens.

The UK has a well-documented shortage of tech talent that means it simply cannot compete globally without tapping into highly-skilled overseas workers. Splitting away from Europe would make it even more difficult for UK tech firms to compete with the US tech giants, because their talent pool would be so much larger than ours. The Internet encourages the free flow of information, trade and intellect around the globe. This is the new world order, and leading organisations embody this concept through their principles and actions. To cut ourselves off from the rest of Europe therefore does nothing to protect the UK’s reputation as being open for business.”