“Microsoft holds all the key information about data processing in its software, but is pointing the finger at schools when it comes to exercising rights,” Maartje de Graaf, a data protection lawyer at NOYB, said in a statement.
The advocacy group contends schools and other local authorities lack the “power to influence how Microsoft actually processes user data,” which allows the tech company to “dictate the terms and conditions of contracts with anyone who wants to use their products” in the educational space, where software vendors such as Microsoft have captured an “enormous” share of the market.
“Under the current system that Microsoft is imposing on schools, your school would have to audit Microsoft or give them instructions on how to process pupils’ data,” de Graaf said. “Everyone knows that such contractual arrangements are out of touch with reality.”
Microsoft also fails to give schools clear information about what actually happens to students’ data, according to the group, which called “trying to find out exactly what privacy policies or documents apply to the use” of the product “an expedition in itself.”
