Existing concerns on Windows data protection laws infractions

There still exists a European data protection authorities´ concern on the data collection practices in Windows 10. Even though the letter to Microsoft has been sent by the Article 29 Working Party (or WP29), the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has expressed its serious worries.

Microsoft was therefore asked to explain in a very clear way the purposes and kinds of personal data, which are under processing, as this is still an issue, which remains unclear.

Last July even France`s CNIL has demanded Microsoft to “halt the excessive collection of data and the tracking of users’ browsing without their consent”, as it accused Microsoft of numerous data protection laws infractions, such as too wide personal data collection under the telemetry programme and tracking tool default activation (intended to the targeted advertising delivery) without consent or user knowledge.

As a response Microsoft has released to the market (in January) a new Windows 10 update – so called “Creators Update”. It includes a dashboard based on web, which allows users to choose the desired data-sharing level.

At the conference in Australia, which took place this Monday, Microsoft has also announced a second major Windows 10 release this year (with the Neon user-interface design elements project).

According to the WP29 though: “Even considering the proposed changes to Windows 10, the Working Party remains concerned about the level of protection of users’ personal data”.

“Microsoft should clearly explain what kinds of personal data are processed for what purposes. Without such information, consent cannot be informed, and therefore, not valid.”

Apart from Windows, the WP29 has also taken Facebook, WhatsApp and Yahoo under its magnifier, which are being suspected of data-protection laws violations.