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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) investigates compliance with contractual arrangements between EU institutions and the tech giant. The EDPS has made this known. The research will show whether the use of the products is in accordance with privacy rules.

Various EU institutions and bodies use Microsoft products and services to carry out their daily activities. This includes the processing of large amounts of personal data. According to the EDPS, due to the nature, scope, context and purposes of the data processing, it is important that the safeguards and measures comply with the new data protection rules, which were established at the end of last year.

“Contractors now have direct responsibilities for ensuring compliance with the rules. However, if they use third parties to provide services, the EU institutions will remain responsible for all data processing operations carried out for them’, says Wojciech Wiewiórowski, Assistant EDPS, in a statement.

These institutions are therefore responsible for ensuring that the contractual arrangements comply with the privacy rules, and for identifying and limiting risks. “It is with this in mind that the contractual relationship between the EU institutions and Microsoft is now being examined by the EDPS’, said Wiewiórowski.

In the study, the EDPS looks at which Microsoft products and services are currently used by EU institutions, and whether the contractual arrangements between the company and the institutions comply with data protection rules.

Research Netherlands

There has already been a survey by the Dutch government into Microsoft products and services. A report from November last year lists eight risks for ProPlus subscriptions from Office 2016 and Office 365. According to the researchers, one of the major risks was that Microsoft would collect “large-scale and secret personal data” via office telemetry. Users were not well informed about this.

After that study, Microsoft promised to adapt its services worldwide to meet the government’s requirements.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.