Security News > 2020 > December > Microsoft Revamps ‘Invasive’ M365 Feature After Privacy Backlash

Microsoft has announced what it calls a more privacy-friendly version of its Productivity Score enterprise feature, following backlash from security experts who condemned it as a "Full-fledged workplace surveillance tool."

The Productivity Score feature, which was launched as part of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite on Oct. 29, aimed to provide enterprises with data about how employees were utilizing technology.

The idea behind the feature is to provide employees with a "Score" based on metrics collected from their usage of Microsoft 365 products.

David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of project management tool Basecamp called the tool "The most invasive work-place surveillance scheme yet to hit mainstream," while technologist Wolfie Christl said "This is so problematic at many levels." Christl pointed out that any evaluation of group "Productivity" data represents a disturbing shift of power in data privacy from employees to organizations.

"Productivity Score produces a score for the organization and was never designed to score individual users. We'll make that clearer in the user interface and improve our privacy disclosures in the product to ensure that IT admins know exactly what we do and don't track."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/microsoft-m365-privacy-backlash/161760/