Windows Privacy
Microsoft Comes Clean About Windows Privacy
But the company decided to clear the air with a long, detailed blog post about their privacy policies for Windows 10. The post was long and detailed, but the company did list two simplified rules that it says governs the way they control privacy.
1. Windows 10 collects information so the product will work better for you.
2. You are in control with the ability to determine what information is collected. The company says there are three layers of data collected.1. Safety and Reliability – the company collects data about crashes and other system issues. The data includes an anonymous device ID and app crash data. They promise they don’t include your contents or files or anything that could possibly identify you.
Microsoft cites as an example some problems with a graphics driver that was crashing on Windows 10 PCs. Because of the crash reports, they contacted the developer of the driver and were able to come up with fix that they were able to test out on members of the Windows Insider program and then distribute to users at large within 48 hours of becoming aware of the issue.
2. Personalization – this information allows Microsoft to do things like have Cortana show you the scores for your favorite teams or offer up news stories for topics you’re interested in.
Users have complete control over this information and can update their settings to turn these functions off.
3. The data they don’t collect. Microsoft does not scan the contents of your email, communications or other files to deliver targeted advertising content. Other mail providers do this, and they think it makes them stand out.
If you enable Cortanta, you can give your digital assistant permission to look for things like shipping notices and flight delays in your e-mail, so you can be alerted. But that’s entirely up to you and that information would be for you on your device and not for Microsoft’s consumption.
If you’d like to check out the updated privacy policy for Windows services, click here.
