American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) provided Microsoft $20 million fine for the illegal collection of personal data of children who signed up for the Xbox system without parental consent.
The company violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Epic Games had the same problem last year and had to pay a fine. $520 million. Epic collected data and information from people under the age of 13 who played Fortnite. All without parental consent.
The FTC also complained that Epic turned on real-time voice and text chat for kids and teens by default, resulting in several players being bullied, threatened, harassed, and asked dangerous and psychologically traumatic questions, such as suicide.
For Microsoft, it’s “only” about creating Xbox accounts until the end of 2021, when the system allowed a child to enter personal data before parental consent. If the parent does not subsequently consent to registration, Microsoft kept data for several years. In doing so, he violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Microsoft Explains COPPA Violation a technical error, because of which the system did not automatically delete information 14 days after unsuccessful registration. Xbox engineers had to immediately fix the bug, remove the data, and put in place procedures to prevent the bug from happening again. The company also insists that the data has never been used, shared or monetized.
According to the US Department of Defense, they should Microsoft to strengthen privacy protections for children of Xbox users. Among other things, Microsoft must also protect the data it shares with third-party publishers and developers.
Source :Indian TV
