Microsoft’s Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare. Here’s how to protect yourself..
So you finally installed Windows 10 and joined the ranks of the other 67 million users. Microsoft’s privacy statement has recently been updated to explain the nature of the personal information it collects from your computer when running Windows 10, including payment data, data about your interests and contact information.Q: Because there are features of Windows 7 that will be eliminated by upgrading a PC to Windows 10 (such as DVD software and some games), some of us may decide we don’t like it.Windows 10 has been well received by users and tech writers alike, but parts of Microsoft’s new privacy policy are raising eyebrows due to concerns that they could be ‘spying’ on what users do. Windows 10 is now running on more than 14 million devices worldwide since the software began rolling out on July 29, saving users’ Bing search information, private email content and the apps they access, along with “your typed and handwritten words”.
One excerpt worryingly tells users that “we will access, disclose and preserve personal data”, including the contents of emails or files in private folders. In other words, it’s not Windows 8, a Frankenstein’s monster of a tablet-plus-desktop OS that alienated everyone from PC manufacturers to corporate users.
They add that they will do this when they need to comply with law enforcement, prevent spam, maintain the security of their networks, or protect their rights or property. To effectively provide Windows as a service, Microsoft gathers some performance, diagnostic and usage information that helps keep Windows and apps running properly. Microsoft also keeps tabs on your behaviour in order to target adverts to you – something you might be uncomfortable with, or might just find annoying. This may seems like a stretch, but you’d be surprised by the amount of personal information Windows 10 collects from its users—information including phone numbers, GPS location, credit card numbers, and even video and audio messages. Windows 7 users will find a lot familiar with the latest operating system, including the return of their beloved start menu, and a desktop that actually makes sense.
If you don’t see it there, you may need to update your computer manually. (Look for Windows Update in the Control Panel.) The Get Windows 10 app will check whether your existing computer is compatible, and then put you in line for the free download. Apple and Google may have ignited the trend of collecting increasing amounts of their customers’ information, but with Windows 10, Microsoft has officially joined that race.
It’s not instant, but you should get an email with further instructions in the following days or weeks. (This won’t work on existing Enterprise editions of Windows; those require a special volume licence.) If you have multiple computers to update, or want to skip the download queue, Microsoft offers a link you can use to create your own upgrade USB drive or DVD right away. There are 13 screens you need to get through to cover every aspect of your machine, including what apps and programs have access to your location, contacts, messaging details and camera, amongst other things. By default, Windows 10 gives itself the right to pass loads of your data to Microsoft’s servers, use your bandwidth for Microsoft’s own purposes, and profile your Windows usage. If you’re especially concerned about the kind of data you’re sharing with Microsoft, you can adjust it by opening up Settings > Privacy and toggling off the various inputs. Again, this could be a problem, as the Cortana search function, which is similar to Apple’s Siri, has been highly praised as one of the best functions of Windows 10.
If you wait longer than a month to change your mind, you’ll have to return to your earlier operating system the hard way, by using an original install disk or by downloading a copy of your previous operating system from Microsoft. Windows 10 ads work by delivering you targeted adverts wherever you’re logged in to your Microsoft account, whether you’re on desktop, mobile or tablet.
Instead of using an existing Windows account, you could use a newly made local account instead – this prevents Microsoft from getting your data, and using it to make sure your machine is updated when you log on with a Windows account. I’m sure most users will; it’s hard to argue with the price, but I’m more fascinated to see whether this will lead to enterprise customers embracing Windows 10 at a faster clip than perhaps they’d planned.
Some people may prefer the convenience of synced features and targeted ads, and that’s fine – but the privacy policy can be quite intrusive, and you’re opted in automatically. The product key will be on a “certificate of authenticity” sticker on the outside of the PC, stored in a computer file or embedded in a PC computer chip. But even that won’t excuse Microsoft’s ham-fisted incursion into users’ data, nor how difficult it is restore the level of privacy back to what it was in Windows 7 and 8.
While I work in an IT department for a large organisation, I have little to do with Windows PCs, and even less to do with decision making, so anything I write here is just my personal opinion. COMMENT RULES: Comments that are judged to be defamatory, abusive or in bad taste are not acceptable and contributors who consistently fall below certain criteria will be permanently blacklisted.
Apple’s and Google’s privacy policies both have their own issues of collection and sharing, but Microsoft’s is far vaguer when it comes to what the company collects, how it will use it, and who it will share it with—partly because Microsoft’s one-size-fits-all privacy policy currently applies to all your data, whether it’s on your own machine or in the cloud. But I’m wondering if Microsoft is looking to make Windows 10 as attractive as they can to home users in the hope of pressuring the enterprise, where Microsoft makes the majority of its income, into upgrading. For details on downloading old versions of Windows, see tinyurl.com/knfxe3b for Windows 7 or tinyurl.com/bkpy97u for Windows 8.1 Q: I use the e-mail system of my Internet service provider, Frontier.com, but I’m having trouble downloading e-mail attachments. While Windows 10 apparently isn’t causing a Vista-like driver nightmare, there have been complaints about some driver incompatibilities with particular graphics cards, wireless cards, printers, etc. that may take time to fix. For some potential fixes, such as changing Windows settings, clearing the browser’s cache (where previously downloaded material is stored) and storing downloads under new file names, see tinyurl.com/mzjbjjq.
The first set of toggles, concerning personalization and location, looks like this: These settings all send your personal data to Microsoft with little upside for you (unless you like customized advertising). This simple idea was immediately popular among Mac users, who grew to love the app on their home computers and demanded their work computer was upgraded to match. Microsoft has clarified that “once you upgrade within the first year for free, it’s yours forever at no additional cost.” That means it won’t require a subscription, and no features should be limited down the road.
Automatic connection to open hotspots and to your contact’s networks means that your computer will connect to certain networks without your explicit consent. And now that Microsoft is focused on building high quality apps for Android and iOS, where over 90 per cent of mobile customers are, one killer app released simultaneously across all platforms (but requiring Windows 10 for PCs) could form one hell of a pincer movement on your IT department’s deployment strategy. Microsoft must find it frustrating how fast Apple have been able to move its customer base to the latest versions of their desktop and mobile operating systems, at home and at work. Last, sending error and diagnostic information may seem harmless, but when something goes wrong, that “information” might include tons of sensitive stuff—if you were editing a spreadsheet of your romantic dalliances when your computer crashed, it’ll get uploaded.
Microsoft doesn’t have a list anywhere of everything supported by Windows 10, so if you want to know for sure before you upgrade, check with your hardware manufacturer or software publisher, or check online forums for more niche products. The install settings are only a subset of Windows 10’s privacy settings, which occupy more than a dozen different pages and dialogue boxes across the user interface, none of them in plain sight. One could argue Apple may have pushed its user base a little too quickly, asking its users to embrace completely redesigned applications and operating systems every year. Apple now face the opposite problem, a user base so overwhelmed by change that they’re sometimes reluctant to trust the latest iOS or Mac upgrade on offer.
Not creating an account will keep your activity and information local to your computer, while having an account will create a link for Microsoft to piece all of the metadata it gathers back to your identity. In a pinch, however, there’s only one really important one that wasn’t already changed during install, which is under Account info: This gives any app you install permission to see an arbitrary amount of your account info. Just like the iPad before it, enterprise IT departments may not want to support the Surface, but could find they have to, as demand for the device increases. Microsoft will encourage you to create a “Microsoft account” (formerly known as a Live ID) so that signing on to Windows is akin to signing into Microsoft’s online services.
From there you can clear the “interests” data that Cortana and Bing learned about you, as well as clear other Cortana data including “Speech, Inking and Typing” information. Realistically, large IT departments are probably just starting to think about organising blue-sky meetings on drafting a business case, before organising deployment retreats, running year-long pilot groups, working out how they’ll upgrade their old Internet Explorer 6 intranet, and all the other fun tasks large organisations like to do.
Not using a Microsoft account will single-handedly protect you from many of Microsoft’s attempts to collapse the local-remote distinction in its privacy policies. If you counted on Windows Media Center to watch and record TV shows using a TV tuner, try MediaPortal, a free alternative that has support for various tuners. The Cortana virtual assistant works by tracking activity like email and Web searches, but in general the service doesn’t go further than what many people already willingly surrender to Google and Facebook.
In Advanced options, select Choose how updates are delivered. (You may also want to change the drop down to “Notify to schedule restart” so that Windows won’t spontaneously reboot your machine after installing updates.) Microsoft’s Siri-imitating Cortana personal assistant and its new Edge browser are designed to take advantage of as much personal information as possible to customize user experience, take annotations, and learn all about you. This is not a complete list, but it hits the most important spots where Microsoft has made the defaults uncomfortably intrusive, nosy, or simply greedy. There has also been some concern about a Windows 10 feature called Wi-Fi Sense that’s supposed to make it more convenient to join Wi-Fi networks by letting you share passwords with friends. Microsoft needs to centralize these and other settings in a far more transparent and easy-to-understand box, clarify their implications, and pledge to users that it won’t upend their privacy settings in so egregious a way again.