Privacy campaign group NOYB has filed two complaints with the Austrian data protection authority (DPA) against Microsoft and its 365 Education cloud service. The first complaint alleges that Microsoft has breached the information obligation and is shifting responsibility for EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance onto schools despite them having no control over the way the software processes information. NOYB claims Microsoft violated GDPR Articles 5(1)(a) and 12 to 15.
The situation places decision-making power and profits squarely in Microsoft's hands, leaving schools in a difficult position. Microsoft is accused of offloading legal responsibilities under the GDPR onto the schools that use its services, leading to unanswered access requests and a complex web of privacy policies, documents, terms, and contracts for the schools to navigate.
In a statement, Maartje de Graaf, a data protection lawyer at noyb said, "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."
The second complaint addresses Microsoft's unlawful processing of personal data by cookies, an infringement of Articles 6(1) and 5(1)(a) of the GDPR.
Additional reporting in TechCrunch.
What is this page?
You are reading a summary article on the Privacy Newsfeed, a free resource for DPOs and other professionals with privacy or data protection responsibilities helping them stay informed of industry news all in one place. The information here is a brief snippet relating to a single piece of original content or several articles about a common topic or thread. The main contributor is listed in the top left-hand corner, just beneath the article title.
The Privacy Newsfeed monitors over 300 global publications, of which more than 4,350 summary articles have been posted to the online archive dating back to the beginning of 2020. A weekly roundup is available by email every Friday.