France: Windows 10 is collecting ‘excessive’ user data, Microsoft has 3 months to address issues

Source: venturebeat.com --- Wednesday, July 20, 2016
France is not a fan of Windows 10. The country’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) has ordered Microsoft to “stop collecting excessive data and tracking browsing by users without their consent.” The CNIL says it carried out seven investigations between April 2016 and June 2016 regarding how Windows 10 functions. The commission also questioned Microsoft to verify that its privacy policy for Windows 10 complied with the French Data Protection Act. For its part, Microsoft has said it will work with CNIL, which says it found “many failures” and has given the company three months to address them. If Microsoft were not to comply, CNIL said it could initiate sanctions. CNIL’s findings are as follows: Irrelevant or excessive data collected: Microsoft is collecting diagnostic and usage data via its telemetry service, which uses such data, among other things, to identify problems and to improve products. To this purpose, Microsoft Corporation processes, for instance, Windows app and Windows Store usage data, providing information, among other things, on all the apps downloaded and installed on the system by a user and the time spent on each one. Therefore, the company is collecting excessive data, as these data are not necessary for the operation of the service. A lack of security: Microsoft allows users to choose a four-character PIN to authenticate themselves for all its online services, notably to access to t ...

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