Jun 6, 2023
Microsoft to pay $20m for child privacy violations
Microsoft will pay $20m to US federal regulators after it was found to have illegally collected data on children who had started Xbox accounts. The FTC said Microsoft violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by not properly getting parental consent and by retaining personal data on children under 13 for longer than necessary for accounts created before 2021. The law requires online services and websites directed towards children to obtain a parent's consent and to inform the parent about personal data being collected about their child. From 2015 to 2020 Microsoft retained data "Sometimes for years" from the account set up, even when a parent failed to complete the process, the FTC said in a statement. Last week, Amazon agreed to pay $25m after the FTC found that it had retained sensitive data, including voice recordings of children, for years.
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