European Union privacy watchdogs are still not happy with Windows 10’s gathering of data about its users, over a year after they first wrote to Microsoft to complain.<\/b>
European Union privacy watchdogs are still not happy with Windows 10\u2019s gathering of data about its users, over a year after they first wrote to Microsoft to complain.
While the company has developed ways to give users more control over what data is collected, their consent to its collection cannot be valid without further explanation, according to the Article 29 Working Party, an umbrella body for the EU\u2019s national privacy regulators.
The working party welcomed Microsoft\u2019s introduction of five new options in Windows 10 to limit or switch off certain kinds of data processing, but said they provided insufficient information about their operation.
\u201cIt is not clear to what extent both new and existing users will be informed about the specific data that are being collected and processed under each of the functionalities,\u201d the working party said in a letter to Microsoft\u2019s Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch and CEO Satya Nadella last week.
The letter, published on the working party\u2019s website Monday , gently lampooned one of Microsoft\u2019s descriptions.
\u201cThe proposed new explanation when, for example, a user switches the level of telemetry data from \u2018full\u2019 to \u2018basic\u2019 that Microsoft will collect \u2018less data\u2019 is insufficient without further explanation. Such information currently is also not available in the current version of the privacy policy,\u201d it said.
The privacy regulators also called on Microsoft to explain what kinds of personal data are processed for what purposes.
\u201cWithout such information, consent cannot be informed, and therefore, not valid,\u201d they wrote.
The working party first wrote to Lynch and Nadella in January 2016 calling for changes to Windows 10\u2019s handling of personal information.
Microsoft announced its plans to change Windows 10\u2019s privacy settings in a blog posting in January 2017, saying that they would be included in its \u201cCreators Update.\u201d
The working party can\u2019t impose any penalties on Microsoft itself, but it acts as the mouthpiece for national data protection authorities across the EU and can recommend they take action. Seven authorities are investigating Windows 10\u2019s data gathering, led by the DPA for the German state of Bavaria. The other authorities holding inquiries are France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the U. K.<\/p>\n