STOP WINDOWS 10 SPYING
The Creators Update has changed-up Windows’ privacy options again — Joel Burgess and the APC team show how to lock them down.
The Creators Update has changed-up Windows’ privacy options again, so we show you how to lock them down.
The latest major patch for Windows 10 — aka the Creators Update — has made a good stab at streamlining the raft of additional security options that first became available in the previous Anniversary Update, but thankfully, there’s still more than enough customisability to keep you feeling safe and protecting yourself from oversharing.
With a over 18 subcategories of privacy options, there’s really a control for everything that you might want or need to shut off included in the options. In such a long list, however, that there are a few that aren’t explained particularly well, so as a rule of thumb, just turn sharing off for anything you don’t fully understand. Most software will prompt you to change particular settings if it requires special privacy privileges to work anyway.
1 START AT THE BEGINNING
The Anniversary Update brought with it some great new security features that have stuck around in the subsequent Creators Update. In particular, the Windows 10 lockscreen allows you to hide your email address if you log in with an Microsoft account. Go to ‘Settings > Accounts > Sign-in’ options and scroll down to ‘Privacy’ to find it.
2 STOP ADS TRACKING YOU
From the main Settings app, you need to click on ‘Privacy’ to discover the main collection of privacy settings available. If you’d prefer advertisers were not able to track you using an anonymous tracking number, then set ‘Advertising ID’ to ‘Off’ and Windows will randomly allocate you a new tracking number each time you use the internet.
3 GENERAL PRIVACY
The first of the remaining two options in the General Privacy section concerns sharing the language (or multiple languages) that you configured Windows 10 in with the websites you visit, which is generally used to more accurately deliver local content. Finally, you can chose to allow Microsoft to anonymously monitor the apps you open, so it can streamline the search bar and Start menu configuration.
4 LOCATION SETTINGS
The ‘Location’ settings is worth visiting. Some apps, such as Maps and Weather, use your location in a helpful way — showing you the local area or telling you the forecast for where you are, for instance. That’s why you probably shouldn’t turn off location information completely, but instead choose which specific apps are allowed to access the data. Just scroll down and select the approved apps.
5 CAMERA AND MICROPHONE
The next two screens change how Windows 10 uses your webcam and microphone — if you have one installed. If you use services like Skype to video-call people, you probably don’t want to block access to your camera or microphone, so it’s a good idea to approve apps that can access your camera and microphone on a case-bycase basis — as in the previous step.
6 KEEP CORTANA IN LINE
Cortana’s virtual assistant duties mean that it (and, therefore, Microsoft) is keeping close tabs on what you say. To improve Cortana’s comprehension, data about your commonly-used vocabulary is stored in a personal profile. To turn this off, select ‘Turn off services and typing suggestions’, but bear in mind you won’t be able to use Cortana at all if you do so.
7 ACCOUNT INFO
The Account window asks if you want to share your “name, picture and other account info” from your Microsoft account with apps. While there are bound to be apps that need this to get to the transaction stage, there are no specific apps that populate the ‘Choose the apps that can access your account info’ category and the vagueness of sharing ‘Other account info’ is a red flag to us. We’d turn this off unless it’s specifically interfering with one of your apps working properly.
8 OTHER DEVICES
Not only does Windows 10 share your info with Microsoft, it can also share it with other devices connected to your Wi-Fi network or plugged into your PC. This makes using your machine with other devices easy and convenient. However, you’ll want to check the ‘Other devices’ settings to make sure you know exactly which devices you’re sharing information with.
9 OTHER PRIVACY SETTINGS
As a general rule of thumb, if there’s not a good explanation of what you’re handing over access to, or you just don’t understand what you’re signing away, then don’t give Windows 10 the authority to share the information. While feedback and diagnostics of errors are generally not something to be concerned about, you’ll want to manually decide which apps you want to share your calendar, contact lists, call history, messages and Bluetooth control to.
10 USE A LOCAL ACCOUNT
If you want even more privacy, you can create a local account and use it with Windows 10, rather than an online Microsoft account. While this limits the functionality of some apps, it will make sure your privacy is under control. To switch to a local account, go to the main Settings window and select ‘Accounts’. Click ‘Sign in with a local account instead’ and enter your password.