The Austrian privacy law group Noyb is suing Microsoft over the use of Microsoft 365 Education software in schools.
Noyb accuses the corporation of violating the privacy of children’s data.
In the complaint, published on the official website of the group, claims that Microsoft 365 Education sets cookies without consent and uses them to analyze user behavior, collect browser data, and target ads.
The lawyers believe that Microsoft does not provide clear explanations for the processing of student data. For example, neither Microsoft’s privacy documentation, nor access requests, nor noyb’s research specifies what specific data Microsoft 365 Education processes.
Noyb claims that Microsoft is trying to avoid responsibility, even though it must comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Instead, the company does not provide schools with access to its privacy and data collection policies.
Complaints have also been filed against other tech companies such as OpenAI, Meta, and Spotify.
It is worth noting that this is not the first scandal involving Microsoft and confidential data AI researchers from Microsoft accidentally leaked terabytes of confidential data to GitHub