Germany Bans Windows 10 and Office 365 In Schools

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Microsoft has once again run afoul of the GDPR rules in Germany, with the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in the German state Hesse, declaring that Windows 10 and Office 365 is not compliant with the GDPR for use in schools.

The issue is related to the telemetry both cloud-connected solutions send back to Microsoft in USA, which ranges from standard software diagnostics to user content from inside applications, potentially sentences from documents and email subject lines.

Previously Microsoft provided a special version of these software applications which stored the data in European data centres, but recently this permission was rescinded, and data was being sent directly to USA.

Michael Ronellenfitsch, Hesse’s data protection commissioner, said that public institutions in Germany “have a special responsibility with regard to the permissibility and traceability of the processing of personal data.”

Ronellenfitsch adds, “As soon as, in particular, the possible third-party access to the data in the cloud and the issue of telemetry data have been resolved in a comprehensible and data protection-compliant manner, Office 365 can be used as a cloud solution by schools.”

https://mspoweruser.com/german-privacy-commissioners-ban-windows-10-and-office-365-in-schools/
 
IIRC, wasn't it Munich that fairly recently abandoned Linux/Open Office and returned to the Microsoft fold? Oops?
 
Dead Parrot said:
IIRC, wasn't it Munich that fairly recently abandoned Linux/Open Office and returned to the Microsoft fold? Oops?
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I can tell you that the biggest reason that Munich went back to Microsoft wasn't so much problems with Linux but the instability of the document and spreadsheet programs offered in the Open Office / Libre Office packages. I can say from experience that both document programs can get so bolluxed that you have to scrape the document into a text program and start over. I have seen Libre Office Calc get stuck on a formula it couldn't resolve to the point that the file had to be reverted. I have seen coloring added to tables that crashed a template.

For myself, I'm confident that Linux is stable and I'm confident that PostGre and MySQL data systems are solid. But I don't trust Gimp, Inkscape, or any Office program that uses multiple languages in their libraries to handle productivity work.


P.S. And I think that Google docs is out for any government institution, since Google admits that it 'analyzes' (but does not read) your documents.
 
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I can see them saying they are banning it but it’s not like the schools are suddenly about to re-image all those machines nor are they suddenly going to take them out of commission. At best they can do a push to remove Office 365 and instead replace it with 2016, (2019 has basically all the telemetry as O365). It is a much easier thing to just add some outbound firewall rules to drop the telemetry as it leaves the buildings. This is the German government trying to assert some pressure on Microsoft for their blatant fuckup.

Here in Canada they are still keeping all our data in Canada but we do have to blacklist specific DNS servers so that our outbound telemetry isn’t “accidentally” routed through a US server on its way to said Canadian Data Centers
 
Lakados said:
Here in Canada they are still keeping all our data in Canada but we do have to blacklist specific DNS servers so that our outbound telemetry isn’t “accidentally” routed through a US server on its way to said Canadian Data Centers
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Given how big Microsoft is I'm surprised they don't co-locate data centers in every G20 country and have those data centers be locally employed and bound to local law. It would be a move that would buy a lot of goodwill.
 
westrock2000 said:
What is the functional difference? Analyze versus read.
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Some say there isn't. When I said, "Google admits that it 'analyzes' (but does not read) your documents" I was paraphrasing Google's own words, and I was being a little sarcastic.

I can understand what Google is saying, but I can only agree with them to a point. If you email a friend and tell them, "Don't buy Ford trucks, they really suck, I wouldn't be caught dead in one," and Google's ad engine 'analyzed' your email and decided to put you in the bucket for Ford advertising, they obviously haven't 'read' your email. But I still think it's a violation of your privacy.
 
Sounds like the only gripe the EU has is that the data is being sent back to the USA instead of servers in the EU. The supposed concern for privacy is laughable.
 
Lakados said:
I can see them saying they are banning it but it’s not like the schools are suddenly about to re-image all those machines nor are they suddenly going to take them out of commission. At best they can do a push to remove Office 365 and instead replace it with 2016, (2019 has basically all the telemetry as O365). It is a much easier thing to just add some outbound firewall rules to drop the telemetry as it leaves the buildings. This is the German government trying to assert some pressure on Microsoft for their blatant fuckup.

Here in Canada they are still keeping all our data in Canada but we do have to blacklist specific DNS servers so that our outbound telemetry isn’t “accidentally” routed through a US server on its way to said Canadian Data Centers
Click to expand...

We re-image our machines every semester, sometimes more often if something comes up. It might be annoying but it shouldn't take long.
 
I had the came concerns when I found out our school board is split 50/50 between ms and google but everybody thought I was nuts...
 
westrock2000 said:
What is the functional difference? Analyze versus read.
Click to expand...
You can analyze document length, how many contributors, how long it goes between edits, don’t usage style grammar, time of day the documents are worked on and by who. There is lots of meta data to be gathered on a document that has nothing to do with the content.
 
mlcarson said:
I applaud Germany for doing this but we do NOT need laws like this in the USA.
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Laws like this ? You mean US shouldn't have a law which defines what permissions companies have to ask to process your data, to have right to ask for removal of your data, have legal requirement to report all data breaches within 72 hours ?
 
pendragon1 said:
I had the came concerns when I found out our school board is split 50/50 between ms and google but everybody thought I was nuts...
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Everyone laughs at me when I raise similar concerns. Sometimes more, other times less, depending on where I work at the time.

It's more sad than funny seeing these "confidential" stamps on documents hosted on MS/Google servers. But hey, it saves some money and those companies don't have nothing to gain by spying on smaller enterprises like ours. Not a problem.
 
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jardows said:
Sounds like the only gripe the EU has is that the data is being sent back to the USA instead of servers in the EU. The supposed concern for privacy is laughable.
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s/EU/Germany....

Germany have some of the tightest sovereign laws in the world, which is ironic for the powehouse of the EU. They are extremely protective of their industry and their data.
They already demand sovereign servers manned by german nations via the german supply chain. MS knows this as they had to setup dedicated Azures instances in Germany rather than "EU" servers across the continent
 
faugusztin said:
Laws like this ? You mean US shouldn't have a law which defines what permissions companies have to ask to process your data, to have right to ask for removal of your data, have legal requirement to report all data breaches within 72 hours ?
Click to expand...

aye, theres a quick lad. recken its exactly what he meant.
 
jardows said:
Sounds like the only gripe the EU has is that the data is being sent back to the USA instead of servers in the EU. The supposed concern for privacy is laughable.
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Pretty much. They want the data and the ability to tap into it in a data center in their country.
 
Germany was always obsessed with privacy rights. Member when they sent google and street view on their merry way? It's ridiculous. I used to do surveying in Germany with a vehicle that everyone mistakes for google street view, and we almost got lynched a few times, and if we only got half a dozen middle fingers and insults hurled at us that was considered a good day.

I loath Germany, their people are distant, cold, and uppity towards foreigners.
 
M76 said:
Germany was always obsessed with privacy rights. Member when they sent google and street view on their merry way? It's ridiculous. I used to do surveying in Germany with a vehicle that everyone mistakes for google street view, and we almost got lynched a few times, and if we only got half a dozen middle fingers and insults hurled at us that was considered a good day.

I loath Germany, their people are distant, cold, and uppity towards foreigners.
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Stop loitering their beaches then.


P.S.
yes that was a far fetched D-day refference
 
So what's their alternative? It says Windows 7 in the article, but MS put telemetry in that also...
 
westrock2000 said:
What is the functional difference? Analyze versus read.
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Documents can serve several purposes. Usually they are not used to draft communications, email and other text based platforms do that much better than drafting a word doc. The Army was crazy about putting everything that resembled a table into Excel instead of setting up a Table in word. Googfle could be using search algorithms for any number of purposes other than gathering actual data from the content of the files. Most popular fonts in order to weed out unused/unpopular options, accessibility setting usage, embedded hyperlink adoption, any number of things that could have an impact on new products in development.
 
smarenwolf said:
I can not confirm that.

Source: Nearly every fellow German I know.
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I've been there a few times and was never mistreated. I don't speak German but just a basic attempt used to be enough to get them to open up and be helpful. That was in the 90's, I can't speak for today.
 
seanreisk said:
Some say there isn't. When I said, "Google admits that it 'analyzes' (but does not read) your documents" I was paraphrasing Google's own words, and I was being a little sarcastic.

I can understand what Google is saying, but I can only agree with them to a point. If you email a friend and tell them, "Don't buy Ford trucks, they really suck, I wouldn't be caught dead in one," and Google's ad engine 'analyzed' your email and decided to put you in the bucket for Ford advertising, they obviously haven't 'read' your email. But I still think it's a violation of your privacy.
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Most people don't use productivity documents to write emails with. Granted there is a version of Outlook in Office365, but there is much more as well. Even emails have metadata and other information that could be useful for a business to process and understand without including the actual content of the conversation at all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not covering for them. I'm just saying that an honest company could have completely honest reasons for doing analysis on select data within documents. The could also be up to shadier things as well.
 
lcpiper said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not covering for them. I'm just saying that an honest company could have completely honest reasons for doing analysis on select data within documents. The could also be up to shadier things as well.
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Like what exactly?
 
smarenwolf said:
I can not confirm that.

Source: Nearly every fellow German I know.
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How can you know their reaction and attitude towards foreigners if you are a "fellow"?

I've been doing jobs in foreign countries for 8 years, and I can confidently say that from all the places I visited Germany had the least helpful, and most frigid people of all. It is the only place where the police had been called on us on multiple occasions and where people harassed us claiming to be secret service.
For example we had arranged to use the yard of a local company as a staging ground and their employees wouldn't even come out their building to meet us. We had to call our contact at another company who in turn called a guy at this company who pressed the button to open the front gate for us, but they still wouldn't come out to us.

I mean they couldn't be more distant if they wanted to.

But even the helpful ones, seemed to be talking down to us instead of treating us as equals. I never had that experience at any other place. Even at the most unlikely places people were generally more friendly than in Germany. Hell the guard with the submachine gun that questioned us in Arabic when we were working near the Iraqi embassy in Manama was more friendly.

Of course not all Germans were rude or uptight, but that was the general vibe. When you visit countries as a tourist you don't really meet the real people, you see hotel employees and restaurant staff who are paid to be friendly, and probably are immigrants nowadays anyway.
 
IMO, the attitude of Germany is VERY region dependent. The US isn't much different. I suspect most travelers are going to have a different impression of a "typical" New Yorker vs. someone in Dallas, Atlanta, LA, Denver, Portland or Salt Lake City.
I've found that he stoic humorless stereotype has a lot more merit in the northern areas that it does in the southern parts of Germany. I've found Bavarians to be rather warm-hearted and jovial compared to residents of Frankfurt or Berlin. Some cities in the NW (like Dusseldorft) are similarly very friendly while nearby Koln isn't necessarily. At lot of it comes down to your own personality and the people you're interacting with, too. You're probably going to have a better experience by being inquisitive than going full-on Kenny Powers.
 
Domingo said:
IMO, the attitude of Germany is VERY region dependent. The US isn't much different. I suspect most travelers are going to have a different impression of a "typical" New Yorker vs. someone in Dallas, Atlanta, LA, Denver, Portland or Salt Lake City.
I've found that he stoic humorless stereotype has a lot more merit in the northern areas that it does in the southern parts of Germany. I've found Bavarians to be rather warm-hearted and jovial compared to residents of Frankfurt or Berlin. Some cities in the NW (like Dusseldorft) are similarly very friendly while nearby Koln isn't necessarily. At lot of it comes down to your own personality and the people you're interacting with, too. You're probably going to have a better experience by being inquisitive than going full-on Kenny Powers.
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Sorry, I don't get the Kenny Powers reference not familiar with that part of popular culture.

Well then we probably visited all the wrong places. We've been to at least a dozen cities within Germany between 2012 and now.
 
M76 said:
How can you know their reaction and attitude towards foreigners if you are a "fellow"?.
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You're correct, I missphrased that.

Source: about 80% of foreigners that have met me or people I know. ;)

It does depend, though, on where you're from and what you're doing.
German attitude towards foreigners has changed heavily in last 5-10 years, due to both external and internal political reasons.

Case in point: German's in general are seriously fed up with Britains right now.
 
smarenwolf said:
You're correct, I missphrased that.

Source: about 80% of foreigners that have met me or people I know. ;)

It does depend, though, on where you're from and what you're doing.
German attitude towards foreigners has changed heavily in last 5-10 years, due to both external and internal political reasons.

Case in point: German's in general are seriously fed up with Britains right now.
Click to expand...

Why would German's be annoyed with Brits these days? Are Brits getting into Germany's business in some way?

I ask because I mostly only get pissed at the EU when the EU gets uppity and criticizes the US on US Domestic Issues.
 
Domingo said:
IMO, the attitude of Germany is VERY region dependent. The US isn't much different. I suspect most travelers are going to have a different impression of a "typical" New Yorker vs. someone in Dallas, Atlanta, LA, Denver, Portland or Salt Lake City.
I've found that he stoic humorless stereotype has a lot more merit in the northern areas that it does in the southern parts of Germany. I've found Bavarians to be rather warm-hearted and jovial compared to residents of Frankfurt or Berlin. Some cities in the NW (like Dusseldorft) are similarly very friendly while nearby Koln isn't necessarily. At lot of it comes down to your own personality and the people you're interacting with, too. You're probably going to have a better experience by being inquisitive than going full-on Kenny Powers.
Click to expand...

There is a lot to what you are saying. Frequently, Germans who are used to being around US Military are very comfortable with our people. Long decades of exposure have shown them that we are not there to mess with their lives. But even when I was in Korea, it was telling that the locals treated troops from the MI Company far better than the Aviation or Artillery guys. The MI guys were more likely to be respectful and some language skills helped avoid misunderstandings.
 
lcpiper said:
There is a lot to what you are saying. Frequently, Germans who are used to being around US Military are very comfortable with our people. Long decades of exposure have shown them that we are not there to mess with their lives. But even when I was in Korea, it was telling that the locals treated troops from the MI Company far better than the Aviation or Artillery guys. The MI guys were more likely to be respectful and some language skills helped avoid misunderstandings.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've noticed in the military base areas they also tend to teach American-style English rather than UK-style. When they hear English, they want to try theirs out. In Bamberg, I've encountered several locals that sound like they grew up in the US, but have never even left Germany. They even use and understand the same types of slang. I'm sure American TV and music probably affect that, too. Even though that base is closed now, there are a fair number of American ex-pats living in the area.
Munich has a massive American ex-pat population. I don't think I've ever gone more than a half hour without hearing someone speaking English anywhere near there. I know only a little German, so when my wife and I are wondering (aloud) what a sign or ads says, a friendly answer and explanation has been given without a request many many times.
I've had similar experiences in Dusseldorf, which oddly has a huge Japanese population. I think English is used as the common language there.
One thing a lot of people don't realize about Germany is that as a united country it isn't that old. I'm not even talking about East/West either. One reason states like Bavaria seem so different from Berlin, Bremen, and Saxony is because they were different kingdoms until the 1800's. There is quite a bit of social strife between states that's pretty similar to the type we have in the US. In particular north vs. south and the former East German states.
 
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