Ubuntu’s Amazon shopping feature complies with UK Data Protection Act

The independent body investigating the implementation of Ubuntu’s Unity Shopping Lens feature and its compliance with the UK Data Protection Act (DPA) of 1998 has found no instances of Canonical being in breach of the act. Ubuntu’s controversial ‘Amazon shopping’ feature has been found to be compliant with relevant data protection and privacy laws in the UK, something that was checked in response to a complaint filed by blogger Luis de Sousa last year. Notably, the feature sends out queries made in the Dash to an intermediary Canonical server, which sends it forward to Amazon. The e-commerce giant then returns product suggestions matching the query back to the Dash. The feature also sends across non-identifiable location data out in the process.