Microsoft Office 365 has ability to ‘spy’ on workers

▤ Summary

“The ability for an employer or an IT administrator to read all communications and documents, and to access data about employees’ online activities without their knowledge, is one of the most problematic features of Office 365,” he told Computer Weekly. The company replaced its reports with aggregated data measuring how much employees were sending email, collaborating on shared documents and taking part in group chats, in a way that was not traceable to individual users. Demetriades found employers can use the governance and risk management tools in Office 365 to look at the content of emails or messages sent by specific employees and identify the activities that individual users have carried out using their work computer. Data-driven insights have long been a critical part of how IT professionals deploy and manage solutions, provide services, meet regulatory requirements and fix problems across their organisations,” a spokesperson said. Although Microsoft mentions in its privacy policy that Office 365 can be used by organisations to “access and process your data”, including “the contents of your communications and files”, it is unlikely to be noticed by employees who may have to consent to the software their company is using.

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