Microsoft Refutes All Accusations Taking Users' Data From MS 365 Applications Train AI Models

It seems that users are still not convinced of whether their data is safe or not. The allegations and controversies continue to surface on social media platforms.

The issue arose from the "Connected Experiences" privacy setting in Microsoft Office, a feature that offers design suggestions, editing tips, and data insights by analysing their Office content.

Source : Unsplash/BoliviaInteligente

Recently, a number of Microsoft users have accused the company of using their data from Microsoft 365 applications, including Word and Excel, to train AI models. Users on social media urged the tech giant to provide an option to opt-out of its “connected experiences” feature. They alleged that this feature was being utilised to train AI models. Following this, Microsoft finally issued a statement to refute all these allegations. 

A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters, "These claims are untrue. Microsoft does not use customer data from Microsoft 365 consumer and commercial applications to train foundational large language models." The spokesperson added that the said feature enables features including co-authoring and cloud storage. The spokesperson further said that it has no connection at all with how the company trains its large language models.

However, despite the statement, it seems that users are still not convinced of whether their data is safe or not. The allegations and controversies continued to surface on social media platforms. 

How Did It All Begin?

The issue arose from the "Connected Experiences" privacy setting in Microsoft Office, an optional feature that provides users with design suggestions, editing tips, data insights, and other enhancements by analyzing their Office content. While Microsoft detailed these functionalities in a blog post, it did not explicitly confirm whether user data is employed for additional purposes, such as AI model training. Notably, the feature is activated by default, requiring users to manually disable it if they wish to opt out.

Concerns about data privacy in Microsoft Office were also highlighted in a post by nixCraft, a popular Linux and Unix user forum on X. Microsoft issued a clarification from its official Microsoft 365 handle and wrote, “In the M365 apps, we do not use customer data to train LLMs. This setting only enables features requiring internet access like co-authoring a document.”