Members of staff working across the EU institutions are “not aware” of the extent to which the US tech firm Microsoft collects and stores their data as part of the use of their products and services, the EU’s data protection watchdog has told EURACTIV.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) had previously disclosed in October that they had “serious concerns” with regards to “the compliance of the relevant contractual terms with data protection rules and the role of Microsoft as a processor for EU institutions.”
The issue centres around the concern that the contractual terms under agreements for the provision of Microsoft products and services to the EU institutions could be in breach of EU data protection law.
The acting EDPS head, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, told EURACTIV on Wednesday (6 November) that EU institution staff “are not aware of all the data which is collected by Microsoft,” adding that the EDPS is in the process of drafting a set of guidelines to submit to the Commission concerning the necessary revisions that need to be made to the contractual agreements with Microsoft, in order for data protection standards to be met. The guidelines are due to be sent to the Commission by the end of November.
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Linux is an alternative to Microsoft and it does not collect data apart from performance reports and they are not mandatory.