| Before | After | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Microsoft Privacy Statement Last Updated: February 2026 What's new? | 0 | Microsoft Privacy Statement Last Updated: March 2026 What's new? |
| 215 | If you consent to receiving marketing communications to a phone number you provide us, we may contact you for marketing purposes using an auto-dialer and/or artificial/prerecorded voice, which may be generated using artificial intelligence. | ||
| 732 | Back to top Our retention of personal data Microsoft retains personal data for as long as necessary to provide the products and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other legitimate purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements. | 733 | Back to top Our retention of personal data Microsoft retains personal data for as long as necessary to provide the products and services you use and to fulfill the transactions you request. |
| 734 | We also retain personal data for other legitimate purposes such as operating our business, meeting our contractual and legal obligations, improving and developing our products and services, protecting the safety and security of our systems and customers, and resolving disputes. | ||
| 734 | Other criteria used to determine the retention periods include: Do customers provide, create, or maintain the data with the expectation we will retain it until they affirmatively remove it? | 736 | See relevant product documentation for more information. |
| 735 | Examples include a document you store in OneDrive, or an email message you keep in your Outlook.com inbox. | 737 | Criteria used to determine the retention periods include: The purposes for which we use the information. |
| 736 | In such cases, we would aim to maintain the data until you actively delete it, such as by moving an email from your Outlook.com inbox to the Deleted Items folder, and then emptying that folder (when your Deleted Items folder is emptied, those emptied items remain in our system for up to 30 days before final deletion). | 738 | For example, when you store a document in OneDrive, we maintain the data until you actively delete it. |
| 737 | (Note that there may be other reasons why the data has to be deleted sooner, for example if you exceed limits on how much data can be stored in your account.) Is there an automated control, such as in the Microsoft privacy dashboard, that enables the customer to access and delete the personal data at any time? | 739 | The nature and sensitivity of the information. |
| 738 | If there is not, a shortened data retention time will generally be adopted. | 740 | For example, we maintain a shortened retention period for precise geolocation information. |
| 739 | Is the personal data of a sensitive type? | 741 | Legal, contractual and other similar obligations we are subject to, including data retention laws, government orders to preserve data relevant to an investigation, or data retained for the purposes of litigation. |
| 740 | If so, a shortened retention time would generally be adopted. | 742 | Conversely, we’ll remove unlawful content where required by law. |
| 741 | Has Microsoft adopted and announced a specific retention period for a certain data type? | — | Removed |
| 742 | For example, for Bing search queries, we de-identify stored queries by removing the entirety of the IP address after 6 months, and cookie IDs and other cross-session identifiers that are used to identify a particular account or device after 18 months. | — | Removed |
| 743 | Has the user provided consent for a longer retention period? | — | Removed |
| 744 | If so, we will retain data in accordance with your consent. | — | Removed |
| 745 | Is Microsoft subject to a legal, contractual, or similar obligation to retain or delete the data? | — | Removed |
| 746 | Examples can include mandatory data retention laws in the applicable jurisdiction, government orders to preserve data relevant to an investigation, or data retained for the purposes of litigation. | — | Removed |
| 747 | Conversely, if we are required by law to remove unlawful content, we will do so. | — | Removed |
| 838 | Data retention . | — | Removed |
| 839 | For personalized advertising, we retain data for no more than 13 months, unless we obtain your consent to retain the data longer. | — | Removed |
| 853 | To opt out of receiving personalized advertising from Microsoft, visit our opt-out page. | 846 | To learn more about Microsoft’s use of data to deliver personalized advertising and to opt out of receiving personalized advertising from Microsoft, visit our opt-out page. |
| 1332 | Retention and de-identification . | — | Removed |
| 1333 | We de-identify stored search queries by removing the entirety of the IP address after 6 months, and cookie IDs and other cross-session identifiers that are used to identify a particular account or device after 18 months. | — | Removed |
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