Xbox is Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) gaming service, console platform, and companion app, spanning consoles, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and the Xbox network's social/multiplayer features. Microsoft's own privacy statement discloses a broad Xbox-specific data set — sign-in/purchase records, game and app usage, console performance and hardware diagnostics, user-generated content, and social/chat activity — and states that gaming interest signals feed cross-service personalized advertising (e.g., viewing content on Xbox.com can lead to ads on MSN). The Xbox iOS app's own App Store privacy label discloses data linked to the user's identity (location, contact info, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics) used for analytics, product personalization, and app functionality, though unlike some Microsoft apps it does not declare a 'Data Used to Track You' or 'Third-Party Advertising' category. Ownership is fully traceable through Microsoft's SEC filings and the App Store's own seller listing. Track record is materially marked by a 2023 FTC settlement: Microsoft agreed to pay $20 million over COPPA charges that Xbox illegally collected and retained children's personal information without parental notice or consent, and the resulting order extends COPPA protections to third-party game publishers Microsoft shares children's data with.
TRACK RECORD
1 ENFORCEMENT ACTION
[2023-06-05]
The FTC announced that Microsoft agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges it violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up for its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining parental consent, and by illegally retaining that children's personal information.
Apple's App Store privacy label for the Xbox app (developer/seller: Microsoft Corporation) discloses that location, contact info, identifiers, usage data, and diagnostics data may be collected and linked to the user's identity.
Microsoft's privacy statement lists the categories of data Xbox collects about a user's activity: sign-in/sign-out events and purchases, which games and apps are used along with game progress, achievements, and play time, console/network performance and hardware or software errors, and content the user uploads or shares (text, pictures, video).
Apple's App Store listing for the Xbox app independently identifies Microsoft Corporation as the seller of record, corroborating that Xbox is a first-party Microsoft product rather than an operated-by-proxy or licensed third-party app.
Microsoft Corporation's FY2025 Form 10-K, filed with the SEC (Commission File Number 001-37845), identifies the company as incorporated in Washington and headquartered in Redmond, WA, with common stock registered under ticker MSFT on Nasdaq; the filing separately reports Xbox content and services revenue as a disclosed line item within Microsoft's More Personal Computing segment.
Microsoft's privacy statement gives an explicit cross-service advertising example tied to Xbox: interest signals from gaming content can carry over to ads shown on other Microsoft properties, stating that viewing gaming content on Xbox.com may later result in seeing game ads on MSN.
The FTC's proposed order accompanying its 2023 COPPA settlement with Microsoft requires Microsoft to extend COPPA protections to the third-party gaming publishers with whom it shares children's data on Xbox, confirming that Xbox routinely shares user data collected from child accounts with third-party publishers.
The FTC announced that Microsoft agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges it violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up for its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining parental consent, and by illegally retaining that children's personal information.
Microsoft's privacy statement states that while a user is using Xbox, the device's microphone, camera, and screen-recording capabilities can be accessed to improve the gaming experience, meaning sensor access is built into the platform's normal operation rather than limited to an opt-in feature the user must separately enable per session.
Apple's App Store privacy label for the Xbox app discloses that data linked to the user's identity (including location, identifiers, device ID, usage data, and advertising data) is used for the purposes of Analytics and Product Personalization; unlike Microsoft Copilot's label, the Xbox app label does not declare a separate 'Data Used to Track You' cross-app tracking category.