Microsoft is trying to head off any concerns that the Xbox One's powerful Kinect camera might become a mass surveillance device or a source or privacy headaches.
Albert Penello, Microsoft's director of product planning for Xbox, explained a little more about how Kinect works during a question and answer session on the gaming forum NeoGAF. Most notably, he insisted that users' facial data is locked to the console, and that Skype video chat is programmed not to run in the background.
Kinect's video cameras can recognize individual users, logging them in automatically when they step in front of the television. While Microsoft has already said that certain personal data, such as facial expressions and heart rate, will not leave the console "without your explicit permission," Penello said that actual face data does not leave the console at all.
"There could be some cool features we could enable if we stored that data in the cloud, like being able to be auto-recognized at a friend's. I get asked for that feature a lot," Penello wrote. "But, for privacy reasons, your facial data doesn't leave the console."
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