Netherlands banned the Microsoft Mobile Office 365 ProPlus application due to unmet GDPR requirements

After the Netherlands Justice and Security Department announced that Microsoft’s mobile office applications were not welcomed by the government, the company once again encountered a GDPR compliance review by European data regulators. The agency commissioned a report from a private company saying that although the desktop version of the Office 365 ProPlus application has followed the rules of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations, however mobile, and offline applications will still be under uncontrolled data.

Earlier, Microsoft worked with the Dutch government to check out its own applications. After discovering that the application collected and transmitted telemetry data (such as email addresses and translation requests) to the United States. According to a report, Office 365 ProPlus was gathering personal information on some 300,000 workers via its telemetry features and storing them in the US.

“Moreover, certain technical improvements that Microsoft has implemented in Office 365 ProPlus are not (yet) available in Office Online,” Privacy Company said, noting “from at least three of the mobile apps on iOS, data about the use of the apps are sent to a US-American marketing company that specializes in predictive profiling.”

“From at least three of the mobile apps on iOS, data about the use of the apps is sent to a US-American marketing company that specializes in predictive profiling.” The Dutch government has therefore contacted Microsoft again to resolve this issue. At the same time, the Dutch government recommends that agencies temporarily avoid using offline and mobile Office applications.

Two weeks ago, the Data Protection and Information Freedom Commissioner in Hessen, Germany, claimed that Windows 10 and Office 365 applications used by many schools did not comply with the GDPR rules.

Via: The Register