Has this ever struck anyone as crazy? Highly sensitive information being sent through privacy invasive services. Surely this doesn’t even comply with regulations to some extent? I am sure they are on Enterprise versions where “we don’t sell your data” or some nonsense like that but pigs will fly before Microsoft doesn’t screw over a paying customer to train AI.
Sure.
It does. Big companies live and breed in huge govt, enterprise contracts in a highly regulated areas because no small size company could deliver what they can in terms of SLA, security guarantees etc.
Nah, that’s just factually incorrect.
It will take a long time for the culture to change
This is why various European countries and cities are moving away from Microsoft. That being said, I have friends who work for European government institutions, and their offices do not seem to be following these new directions.
For example, I have a Danish friend who works for the Danish Trade Council in Australia, and they are fully embracing Co-Pilot, Zoom, and those surveillance apps. It seems they did not get the memo, and I suspect that even if they had, unless they were forced to, they will not move away from these surveillance tools. Maybe it’s because it’s still early days, and they may give themselves years before they fully transition, but for many offices it doesn’t seem like they are even trying.
Limitatons on work computers exist
I know that legal firms work like regular offices when it comes to their computers, but from my observation banks, grocery stores, and restaurants work differently. What I mean is that there is very little you can do outside what is strictly authorized on a bank’s computer, or a restaurant’s computer.
By restaurant computer, I don’t mean the computer that the owner or manager is using in their office, I mean the computer that registers all the orders. And it’s the same for grocery stores.
This is why part of me feels like privacy laws are either not strong enough, or not likely to be enforced, because every business office uses Microsoft and adobe products.
And in 2026, most of those apps require a constant connection to the internet with an account that sees everything you do. People who work in the creative industries should also have grounds to complain because Adobe’s AI is training on their labor.
We should sue Big Tech to oblivion
Not long ago I was watching a panel talk show about the banality of sexual assault. The panel included lawyers, judges, and journalists who are experts on the topic, as well as victims. The judges and lawyers were saying that if every person who was a victim of sexual assault sought justice, the courts would be overwhelmed because it is so common.
I think it is the same with surveillance. I think that if a significant portion of the world population was aware of the pervasiveness of surveillance, and filed complaints to their data protection authority, they would be overwhelmed. Some are already overwhelmed. I would not be surprised if some would be so overwhelmed that they would not allow all these big tech companies to be sued to oblivion because their apps are quasi ubiquitous in every industry, including government.
And yet, I think this is what it will take to change the system. We should complain every time we see it happen, if DPA fails to protect us, it proves that privacy laws are just theater. We have to start a revolution to change the current paradigm.
this is mostly a facade from what I’ve read.
they don’t actually care about any of the underlying issues at hand and will switch one broken option for another “solution”
that is: unlocked, unencrypted, outdated, unchecked… insecure
bonus points for all the legal/accounting offices using cheap wireless keyboards with zero encryption
while true for bank or grocery, for small restaurants these can either be horrendous windows xp era machines or just plain ipads.
agreed
seriously, people need to start putting their foot down in every single interaction, it is the only way to start shifting the scale
- Lawyers have attorney client privilege protecting their communication.
- Enterprise Microsoft plans are reasonably secure.
- An adversary who can defeat Microsoft security is likely not considered a common threat.
It’s more the privacy I am worried about. I don’t think the company is respecting any privileges of their users whatsoever, whether legally mandated or not. I suspect everything sent through those channels is being monitored and used to train AI. It’s not an external adversary that concerns me, it’s Microsoft themselves.
Which part? Maybe their ToS say they don’t collect but I don’t believe them. Facebook says they don’t sell your data. At what point do we stop believing what these companies (which have a huge track record of violating their users) regardless of what they say.
When trust is no longer given to them to begin with.
Governement also use Windows, Copilot and Outlook, at least that’s the case in my country.
Microsoft is very trusted here, I am not saying I agree, just that’s my observation.
I wonder, is such malware really trusted, or are people in those environments pressured/conditioned into using it?
They’re not even engaging with you, you’re just a stranger speculating about the experiences and engagements of enterprise contracts.
No. In EULA, they explicitly state how they process and use your data. But govt. and enterprise contracts can’t engage with companies mishandling user data in the Medical field, for example.
I don’t think engaging in paranoia and baseless conspiracy thinking is productive. You’ve constructed a narrative but have nothing to show for it so far.
Because you’ve convinced yourself into believing a total stranger that Microsoft breaks corporate contracts to… train which LLM model exactly? I really don’t follow the why in this message.
There was a news reporting from EU about a startup in Germany implementing AI into governmental fax machine operations… I think Europeans should look back for one second and try and experience the amount of legal nonsense one has to endure in order to start a small business in, let’s say, Germany.
I’m just surprised how much words were produced based off a random baseless claim 
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to get at here.. I don’t need to be in a conversation with Microsoft executives to speculate on their products. There’s countless examples of big tech companies breaking their own rules.
So what’s your take, do you trust Microsoft to handle sensitive data and respect your privacy?
Just taking a quick example - where Microsoft was decrypting password protected zip folders in the cloud of a workplace environment, presumably one of these enterprise contracts since it was the workplace. https://www.techspot.com/news/98701-microsoft-can-open-scan-password-protected-zip-archives.html
I’d be curious to see if you could link me their ToS where they say they do that.
I honestly think people are just lazy. Government has used these tools forever, before everyone was aware of the surveillance economy. Now we know about it, but people don’t care about privacy generally, which is reflected by the lack of change generally.
I hope to see real change in Europe moving to FLOSS alternatives.