Microsoft denies Kinect could be used to snoop

Microsoft has denied its Kinect gaming platform could be used to harvest personal information that would be passed onto to advertisers and other partners.

The denial comes in the wake of comments made by a Microsoft executive at an investor briefing in which he outlined potentially intrusive uses for the motion-detecting games platform.

“Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes,” the company said in a statement sent to the Wall Street Journal.

“Microsoft has a strong track record of implementing some of the best privacy protection measures in the industry. We place great importance on the privacy of our customers’ information and the safety of their experiences.”

The statement was a fire-fighting turnaround to counter comments from Xbox’s chief financial officer Dennis Durkin, in which he said the Kinect gaming device could allow it to provide advertisers with better-focused information on target audiences.

“Over time [it] will help us be more targeted about what content choices we present, what advertising we present, how we get better feedback,” Durkin told attendees of a BMO Capital Markets conference last week.

The system could, Durkin said, provide “data about how many people are in a room when an advertisement is shown, how many people are in a room when a game is being played. How are they engaged with a sporting event? Are they standing up? Are they excited? Are they wearing Seahawks jerseys?"

The data denial came as Microsoft announced it had sold a million devices in the ten days since Kinect went on sale.

This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk