
Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears - tysone
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-office-365-banned-in-german-schools-over-privacy-fears/
======
hyperman1
I always wonder if it is legal for doktors to use microsoft software: In my
country, the medical secret is absolute, which means giving or taking medical
data to anybody not strictly needing it is a crime.

So if a medical program crashes and telemetry picks up medical data in a dump,
the doktor commits a crime, as does any microsoft employee reading that dump.

I guess the only reason the court doesn't do anything, is thete is no smoking
gun. So one day, someone will notice and then it all comes crashing down.

~~~
mcny
I don't know. I've long argued possession of data should never be a crime,
even if the data contains evidence of crimes including crimes committed on
human children.

To say a Microsoft employee who sees medical data is committing a crime would
probably make me a hypocrite.

I think there should be some accountability but that should be at the top of
an organization, not (just) the foot soldiers.

~~~
jplayer01
I'd say one of the problems is that often, the heads of an organization are
almost never held to account. This is particularly the case when it comes to
American companies, as we've seen in the case of Zuckerberg. Maybe if the
front line felt the pain in some way, there'd be more pressure to change the
internal culture. I don't see any easy solutions here, unfortunately, while
companies make insane amounts of money off of violating our privacy and our
right to control our own data.

------
zelphirkalt
Who remembers RMS saying that anything non-free is inappropriate at schools?
Here we see part of the reason why.

Very good decision by those schools. Hopefully more will follow and other
institutions as well.

------
jplayer01
Funny, meanwhile in my state the schools are moving _to_ Microsoft.
Unfortunately, skepticism of Microsoft and other American companies isn't as
widespread as it should be here in Germany.

~~~
jsiepkes
Compared to your next door neighbour (the Netherlands) privacy awareness is a
big thing in Germany. Or at least that is the perception I get...

~~~
jplayer01
It's tough. Our laws are stricter than many other countries. But the vast
majority of people I know or have interacted with just don't think it's a big
deal. The whole "I have nothing to hide" perspective. Maybe it's an age thing.
I don't know. I'll point out some creepy privacy violation and I usually get a
"So?"

------
seieste
Remember when Munich ditched Windows? It only lasted a few years before
Microsoft successfully won them back by offering steep discounts and moving
their headquarters to Munich.

One has to wonder whether history will repeat itself.

[https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/](https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-
failure/)

------
nesky
I'd be interested to know what they're proposing as an alternative?
LibreOffice?

~~~
thecount122195
Personally I use LaTeX rather than word, theres a bit of a learning curve
though so it might not be suitable for lower levels but for high schoolers+ I
totally see being able to use it. Everything word does it does better and most
of Academia uses it already.

~~~
zelphirkalt
It would definitely be a good preparation for academic life after school.
Personally I wish I had learned it at school time. How much better and nicer
could my notes have been, knowing how to make a really well document, in
contrast to loose sheets of paper flying around and being discarded after the
school year. Granted, some people are good at taking clean notes and bringing
them into order. At school time I was not. A good computer workflow would
probably have sparked my attention to detail even with school notes.

~~~
thecount122195
I find its excellent for article writing, but note writing not so much the
semi coding style doesen't lend itself well to free form writing at least for
me. I'm in engineering grad school and writing equations from board to free
hand notes is much easier for me than writing to a program. Though I have some
friends who prefer using computers and some of the note taking programs you
can use with a stylus and tablet are excellent.

~~~
zelphirkalt
A professor (taught mathematics) of mine once said, that "it needs to go
through the hand at least once" and I used to think of that being an annoying
attitude, but now I am more or less sure he was right.

Taking notes by hand is probably often a good idea. But you can still
afterwards make them very clean in a document, also thinking about them again
while doing that, so there is also a bit of additional learning in that
activity.

