"Microsoft offers users an overview of the categories of data that it collects through basic telemetry, but only informs people in a general way, with examples, about the categories of personal data it collects through full telemetry.
And says it "will take a similar approach to that taken for the processing of special (i.e. sensitive) categories of personal data".
Clearly, the rules governing personal data need urgently to be protected under the third pillar, as do global standards covering all the categories of personal data.
Our most comprehensive such legislation, the Privacy Act of 1974, offers limited protections to certain categories of federally held personal data.
You may be happy to share a certain amount of personal data in exchange for access to a certain service, for example.
These might include online companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google that already house certain categories of data for consumers; social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn; data vaults like Personal, which allow consumers to store and manage certain kinds of data; and companies like Reputation.com whose business model already relies on customers willing to pay for data privacy.
For instance, out of the six core project partner cities, only four had actually implemented schemes, and there were difficulties in obtaining certain categories of data from Rome and Oslo.
But on certain categories of information, like location data, the law remains vague on whether a search warrant is required.
