WSJ: EU privacy authorities to seek changes in Microsoft Passport

Brandon Mitchener reports on plans by European data-protection commissioners to seek changes by Microsoft in its Passport online authentication system.

Microsoft has insisted that Passport already complies with European data-protection rules. But European privacy authorities last year said the system raised "legal issues," including the "value and quality of the consent given" by users and the "security risks associated" with the transfer of their data to Passport's partners. By law, anyone wishing to store personal data related to residents of the European Union has to ask permission and give people the right to change or delete the data at any time. Anyone storing the data is also forbidden from sharing that data with third parties without asking the consent of the data subject.