Microsoft: Kinect Isn't Spying on You

Is Kinect designed to spy on you?

So goes the (minor) chatter around the blogosphere today, after Dennis Durkin (COO and CFO of Microsoft's Xbox business) made some comments during a presentation at last week's BMO Capital Markets conference. I'm quoting from The Wall Street Journal here:

"We can cater which content we present to you based on who you are ... How many people are in the room when the ad is shown? ... When you add this sort of device to a living room, there's a bunch of business opportunities that come with that."

That led to some DEFCON 1-level privacy concerns among those bloggers already paranoid that Eric Schmidt has their blood type and home address stored on his Droid X. While a device's use of personal data should always be questioned, however, Durkin's comments seem too vague to warrant any real fear. For the moment, at least.

Kinect uses a 3D camera to track 48 points of movement on the user's body, translating those movements to an onscreen avatar. Aside from broad demographic data, I'm at a loss to think of many ways where someone's body morphology could be used for more targeted ads. That being said, Microsoft's plans for 3D technology extend far beyond the gaming realm; the company's recent agreement to acquire Canesta, which makes 3D-image sensor chips and modules embedded in a number of everyday products, suggests that gesture-driven focus (and 3D-centric recognition) could become future pillars of Microsoft's product interfaces.

In theory, improved 3D sensing technology will be able to read far more exacting types of data (i.e., facial expressions, or even clothing types) and add those to some sort of evolving database. Then the opportunities for data-mining become much more relevant, at least from an advertiser and product-development perspective. That could spark concerns among privacy advocates. Certainly George Orwell would start spinning in his grave.

In any case, now Microsoft's issued a statement on the matter:

"Xbox 360 and Xbox Live do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes ... We place great importance on the privacy of our customers' information and the safety of their experiences."

So there.

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