Microsoft Fined $20 Million For Child Privacy Violations

The $20 million fine comes after the company was found illegally collecting data for children’s opening up Xbox accounts

American technology giant, Microsoft, will now pay over $20 million in fines to the US federal regulators as the company was recently found violating child privacy laws as it was collecting data for children who opened up their Xbox accounts, while also failing to inform parents about their data collection policies.

A final amount for the fine was decided in a meeting between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft representatives who have now promised an increased amount of protection for child gamers.

Similar cases of privacy violations were filed against e-commerce giant ‘Amazon’ for products such as the Alexa, Ring and other Echo devices.

According to a statement by FTC, Microsoft violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, since it failed to get proper parental consent and continued to retain personal data of children below 13, for all accounts created before 2021.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires all online services and websites built for children to obtain parental consent for any data they plan to collect for their children.

While Microsoft did ask for parental consent during its signup, the checkbox came only after the company had collected crucial information such as the phone number.

The technology giant also failed to inform parents about all the different data including user’s profile picture that were being collected from child accounts and sold to third parties.

“Regrettably, we did not meet customer expectations and are committed to complying with the order to continue improving upon our safety measures. We believe that we can and should do more, and we’ll remain steadfast in our commitment to safety, privacy, and security for our community,” said CVP of Xbox Player Services, Dave McCarthy.

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