Games Thirst – Amazing Life
A German government official has expressed frustrations with Xbox One’s Kinect requirement, saying that the updated peripheral, which must be connected to the Xbox One for the console to work, is a “monitoring device.”
That’s what Germany’s Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar said (courtesy The Escapist), adding that no one knows what Microsoft does with people’s data once collected, and if said data ever gets deleted.
The Xbox continuously records all sorts of personal information about me. Reaction rates, my learning or emotional states. They are then processed on an external server, and possibly even passed on to third parties. Whether they will ever deleted, the person cannot influence.
Microsoft swiftly responded to the matter, telling Kotaku that they have a long history of placing customers privacy as priority over all else.
We know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data. Microsoft has more than ten years of experience making privacy a top priority. Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment. We’ll share more details later.
Microsoft promises to be more forthcoming about its new console at its E3 press conference, happening on June 10th.
