Microsoft faces double whammy on privacy

Consumer advocate the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) expanded its complaint over Windows XP on Wednesday and hinted that a UK citizen may soon challenge Microsoft's Hailstorm technology under data protection rules.

Epic is concerned about the integration of Microsoft's Passport into Windows XP and has asked US regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to intervene.

The privacy group believes that Passport's security can easily be bypassed and that bundling passport with the operating system results in a number of examples of unfair trade practices. Epic also asked the FTC to see whether Passport breaches guidelines on children's privacy.

Passport lets consumers store basic information about themselves so that they do not have to keep re-entering details when visiting new websites.

After Epic's initial complaint made on 26 July, Microsoft reduced the amount of information users must supply to sign up to Passport to an email address, their country, state and post code.

Marc Rotenberg, president at Epic, said in a conference call: "It is not our goal here to unnecessarily delay the release of XP. It is our goal to have changes made to XP and Passport that will better protect the privacy and personal information of its users."

In the same call, Rotenberg made allusions to an imminent complaint from an as yet unnamed UK resident against Microsoft's Hailstorm web services technology, of which Passport is the first component.

He said that when filed, the complaint would allege that Hailstorm fails to comply with data protection rules agreed between the US and Europe under the safe harbour agreement.

Microsoft said that Hailstorm was still largely under development and that any complaint would be jumping the gun somewhat.