Austrian Privacy Group Targets Microsoft Over Education Programme

On Tuesday, Microsoft was targeted in two complaints filed by privacy advocacy group NOYB with the Austrian privacy watchdog about its online education software, the latest allegations levied against the US tech giant.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, schools turned to remote educational programmes and students became online learners, increasing the popularity of online educational initiatives.

NOYB’s (None of your business) complaints focus on Microsoft’s 365 Education suite of student software programmes, which includes Word, Excel, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

In its initial complaint, the advocacy organization said Microsoft delegated its responsibility as a data controller under EU privacy regulations known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to schools, that do not possess the relevant data.

In a statement, NOYB lawyer Maartje de Graaf stated, “Under the current system that Microsoft is imposing on schools, your school would have to audit Microsoft or give them instructions on how to process pupils’ data. Everyone knows that such contractual arrangements are out of touch with reality”.

“This is nothing more but an attempt to shift the responsibility for children’s data as far away from Microsoft as possible”, Graaf continued.

The second issue concerns cookies deployed in Microsoft’s 365 Education. cookies are used by Advertisers to track consumer behavior.

Felix Mikolasch, NOYB lawyer, stated, “Our analysis of the data flows is very worrying. Microsoft 365 Education appears to track users regardless of their age. This practice is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of pupils and students in the EU and EEA (European Economic Area)”.

NOYB encouraged the Austrian Data Protection Authority to investigate their allegations and penalize Microsoft.

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