[German]I'm bringing up another topic that actually shows that it prohibits the use of Microsoft OneDrive for storing personal content. That's because Microsoft is testing AI-powered facial recognition using family photos stored on OneDrive.
AI facial recognition on OneDrive
A reader brought this topic to my attention a few days ago via email. I had also seen several social media posts about it. Malwarebytes addressed it in the following tweet.
OneDrive users are informed in their OneDrive account settings that a new feature is being introduced in the People section. Microsoft is testing facial recognition in photos uploaded to OneDrive. The reason: to help users find photos of family and friends more easily.
Of course, this is only for the benefit of OneDrive users—a convenience feature that everyone has been eagerly awaiting, so to speak. And it would be a nasty prankster who would think anything bad about something so generous. The only thing that bothers some people is Microsoft's note that users can only disable this feature three times a year.
As already mentioned, this is currently a test that is only being rolled out to a few users. The online media Slashdot apparently posted about it here for the first time. Someone wrote that they had uploaded a photo from their cell phone to their Microsoft OneDrive. Under "Privacy and permissions" for the account, they were in for a surprise. There they found the information that OneDrive uses AI to recognize faces in photos…".
II didn't see anything like that myself during a quick test. But the thread starter on Slashdot wrote that he had tried to set the slider switch visible in the above tweet to "No" on the left. The switch was moved back and the message "Something went wrong while updating this setting" appeared. The user had not yet used up the "three attempts" per year to turn it off.
Microsoft has published this support page about the feature, where you can find more information. In this thread on Slashdot, a Microsoft spokesperson confirms the test. This feature is currently being introduced in a preview for a limited number of users so that Microsoft can learn from it and improve the offering.
Such behavior naturally raises immediate privacy concerns. Regarding privacy concerns, it was stated that all Microsoft OneDrive features and Microsoft OneDrive services comply with the Microsoft Privacy Statement and the GDPR applicable in the EU. The data would not leave the EU data border through processing by Microsoft.
Perhaps it's time to consider an alternative. I first came across the above topic via a tweet from Proton Drive. They also offer cloud storage, but with privacy.
