Microsoft fined $20 million in US for ‘violation of children’s privacy’

Collecting children’s personal information without parental consent… Sharing with advertisers

[이데일리 박종화 기자] Microsoft (MS) has been fined 26.1 billion won for breaching the obligation to protect the personal information of children in the United States.

According to Reuters on the 5th (local time), the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC, Korean Fair Trade Commission) imposed a fine of 20 million dollars (about 26.1 billion won) on Microsoft for collecting and keeping children’s personal information without parental consent. ) published that day According to US law, children under the age of 13 must have parental permission to create an MS Xbox account. However, Microsoft has been accused of breaking related laws by collecting and storing the personal information of children who created Xbox accounts between 2015 and 2020 without their guardians’ permission.

The FTC ordered that Microsoft and game publishers (distributors) must destroy children’s account information without parental consent within two weeks of the collection date. In addition, it was noted that not only children’s biometric and health information, but also avatars created based on real images of children are subject to personal information protection.

“We have failed to meet customer expectations and we are committed to complying with mandates to strengthen (personal information) security measures,” said Dave McCarthy, vice president of Microsoft. Microsoft announced that it would not happen again to improve the account creation process in accordance with the FTC order and to archive data that should be deleted. They filed a lawsuit claiming that it was used to train algorithms. Amazon decided to pay $25 million (about 32.6 billion won) as part of the settlement.