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EU Initiates Complaints Against Microsoft’s 365 Education Suite Over Privacy Concern

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News on Education 2 ArdorComm Media Group EU Initiates Complaints Against Microsoft's 365 Education Suite Over Privacy Concern

Microsoft is currently facing two complaints in the European Union (EU) regarding its online education software, 365 Education. According to a report by Reuters, the latest charges against the US-based tech giant have been brought to the Austrian privacy watchdog by the privacy advocacy group NOYB. The group has urged the Austrian Data Protection Authority to investigate these complaints and potentially impose a fine on Microsoft. What is Microsoft 365 Education Suite? During the COVID-19 pandemic, online educational programs gained popularity as schools transitioned to remote teaching. Microsoft’s 365 Education suite offers various tools for students, including Word, Excel, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Complaints Against Microsoft’s 365 Education Suite First Complaint: The advocacy group NOYB alleged that Microsoft shifted the burden of complying with EU data privacy laws (GDPR) onto schools. According to NOYB, schools cannot adequately manage student data under these regulations. NOYB lawyer Maartje de Graaf stated: “Under the current system that Microsoft is imposing on schools, your school would have to audit Microsoft or give them instructions on how to process pupils’ data. Everyone knows that such contractual arrangements are out of touch with reality. This is nothing more but an attempt to shift the responsibility for children’s data as far away from Microsoft as possible.” Second Complaint: The second complaint centers around cookies installed in Microsoft’s 365 Education suite that advertisers use to track consumers. NOYB lawyer Felix Mikolasch expressed concerns: “Our analysis of the data flows is very worrying. Microsoft 365 Education appears to track users regardless of their age. This practice is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of pupils and students in the EU and EEA (European Economic Area).” EU’s Previous Warnings to Microsoft Last month, the EU warned Microsoft that it could impose a fine of up to 1% of its global annual revenue if it fails to provide requested information about the risks associated with its generative AI tools in the Bing search engine. In March, the EU asked tech giants, including Microsoft, to provide details on how they manage risks from AI tools. Microsoft has been accused of dodging questions about its “Copilot in Bing” and “Image Creator” features, which the EU fears may violate new laws by spreading misinformation and manipulating voters.  

Dr. Pranati Tilak, Trustee, Chairman- Executive Council, TMV & Chairman, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyalaya, Emphasizes on Technology Implementation in Education

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image 2023 12 20T05 20 39 584Z ArdorComm Media Group Dr. Pranati Tilak, Trustee, Chairman- Executive Council, TMV & Chairman, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyalaya, Emphasizes on Technology Implementation in Education

“The important aspect that I like the most about this event is that you have involved right from school educators to high education educationist” said Dr. Pranati Tilak, Trustee, Chairman- Executive Council, TMV & Chairman, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyalaya at ArdorComm New Normal- Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023” held in Pune, Maharashtra on 24th November 2023. We are talking so much about skilling any initiative under your leadership on skilling that your institute is taking? Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth has been deemed to be a university we’ve got colleges as well and we run school as well. Now NEP has been implemented across higher education. Skills and promoting technical skills are an integral part of the policy. We have inculcated those in the curriculum and higher education level. At the school level, I like to emphasize the abilities of the students more on the life skills and the emotional ability as well because I feel that the need of the hour now is not just academic knowledge but also co-curricular activities, sports is an important aspect but at the same time, children need to know about life skills and emotional balance as well as how to deal with situations when things don’t go their way because they’re going to face a lot of competition going ahead and they also have a lot of information and exposure via social media as well. So how do they deal with and process it positively? All these concern needs to be addressed I feel right from the school level as well. Many organizations are now implementing technological services that help in running their process smoothly. have you implemented any of these and how it is helping you? We do have an in-house recording studio and we have been implementing online lectures so right from the time I joined TMV we have been working on online examinations for the past 16 years. So we have been implementing that way before any other institute has done that and because of the lockdown, we were all forced to move to the digital platform so like I said we do have an online recording studio. So we’ve recorded online lectures which are available for the students. Nowadays we can’t process or function without LMS as so those are the things we do have in place. Digital boards are some of the tools that are helping students in higher education as well as school level. At the school level, I think it is much more important because in school the attention span of students is much less as compared to children who are older. So the positive intervention of digital technology is very important in the school level. With such a rich legacy and you being in a responsible position as an educator, would you like to tell us how your group is contributing towards spreading education? As I mentioned earlier Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth runs a school as well as it is involved in higher education as well. So KG to Ph.D. is the dream we’ve seen for the organisation and slowly we are realising it as well now. And we must keep in touch with the times because what the industry requires is what the education institute is required to provide. So bridging the industry-academia gap is very important so those are the kind of facility the exposure that we give to students at the same time what does our country stands for or how are we different from other cultures so most of the time students get glamour struck they want to duplicate whatever is going on in the western country but we have such a beautiful culture and rich heritage for which I’m privileged I am privileged to be a part of the family wherein Lok Manya Tilak did fight for our country his entire life that’s what his  life aim was so that aspect somewhere is getting lost and that is something that at all level we especially from the school level itself we do put in that aspects we kind of try to achieve a blend between traditional and modern education as well so while the facilities what the infrastructure is very modern we do stick to our core values wherein we give the students the solid grounding the roots that they require to fly high.   What was the takeaway from today’s event? So brilliant event today the interaction between  the panel I was part of as well so the given take was so qualitative it was not just for the hack of you know we have come from a panel discussion let me just say update and keep quiet everybody was so involved and so was the audience so I think whenever you attend any event even if it’s a speaker or in the capacity of a noted speaker what is important is what do you take away as well because you expect a little bit of learning from every event and it’s a beautiful way of Bond bonding the community and the important aspect that I like the most about this event is that you have involved right from school educators to high education educationist as well what happens is like emphasize again and again things need to start at the grass fruit level things need to start from the school level so the input that everybody gets from hair if they are implemented in school at that early age I think that the most beautiful aspect that you have done in the Summit. We are proud to say that we have recently completed two years of existence and we are celebrating our 2nd anniversary, any messages or suggestions for ArdorComm Media? You are doing great work and like you mentioned earlier you aspire to go International as well. I hope that I see that very soon and Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth will be supporting you in your future endeavours.

Prof. (Dr.) Raj Singh, Vice Chancellor, JAIN (Deemed to be University), Discusses the Future of Education at the New Normal Education Leadership Summit

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image 2023 10 11T12 11 31 966Z ArdorComm Media Group Prof. (Dr.) Raj Singh, Vice Chancellor, JAIN (Deemed to be University), Discusses the Future of Education at the New Normal Education Leadership Summit

“Through normal traditional teaching and learning methods, we cannot attain higher-order learning outcomes, and that doesn’t serve the purpose of the industry,” says Prof. (Dr.) Raj Singh, Vice Chancellor, JAIN (Deemed to be University), in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, Content Writer, ArdorComm Media at the ‘New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023’ #ELSABengaluru #ELSAKarnataka How are you feeling to witness the New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards in Bengaluru? It’s a great initiative, one that not only brings the industry and academia on the same platform but also enables interaction of multiple institutions, exchange of ideas, and benefits from the best practices which every other institution is following. The topic of today’s discussion was very relevant, particularly in the post-National Education Policy scenario, which is also coinciding with the post-COVID scenario, as we call it. To my mind, there’s nothing like the “new normal” because the new normal keeps on changing every day. This new normal is very dynamic. I think it is safe to guess that, to my mind, the environment which is evolving would say that one-third of the education will be delivered through online content, which could be synchronous or asynchronous. One-third of it will be through face-to-face education on campuses, where certain projects and certain lab sessions need to be conducted on the campus to interact with professors. The remaining one-third will be shifted outside the campus, where students have to be in touch with the industry, community, and society. They will meet and talk to them, identify the issues they’re facing, come back to the campus, undertake research projects, and try to find solutions to those problems. All the panel discussions were relevant, emphasizing research-based teaching and learning and a multi-disciplinary environment. These are ways to expand learning opportunities and enable students to attain higher-order learning outcomes, which is the need of the hour. Through normal traditional teaching and learning methods, we cannot attain higher-order learning outcomes, and that doesn’t serve the purpose of the industry. It is because of this reason we have been labelled to a large extent unfairly, that we don’t produce employable graduates. But yes, there are some issues which I think these kinds of platforms enable us to learn and tell others through the exchange of ideas. I’m sure we collectively will benefit and be able to transform our education system, where we not only serve the industry but also serve the community and society at large. I thank ArdorComm Media for having me here. Any message for ArdorComm Media Group for completing two years of its existence? Heartiest congratulations on completing two years. You have been doing great work. I’ve attended many events organized by you. Keep on doing this good work, and maybe we can interact on bringing new formats of this kind of conference and discussions where we can involve more people, not only speakers but more people who can contribute. Sometimes the best ideas come from youngsters, not only from senior people like us. If you can have a discussion format where multiple sub-topics could be distributed and they could talk on each of them after having intense discussions.