Technology journalists described Windows 10 as faster and more user-friendly than any previous version of Windows OS.

The privacy settings in Windows 10 operating system are invasive by default, the experts confirmed that in some cases the changing of a parameter involves over a dozen different screens and the connection to a company website.

The procedure request users signing in with their Microsoft email account, this means Windows can have access to their email accounts, messages, contacts and calendar data.

Microsoft Windows 10 comes with the new Edge browser which serves user personalized ads.

The Microsoft voice-driven assistant Cortana reportedly “plays fast and loose with your data.” 

Microsoft Windows 10 wants access to user locations and location history, another element of concerns for its users.

Consider also that user locations and location history could be provided not just to Microsoft, but to its “trusted partners,” but who are these trusted companies? 

Alec Meer of the ‘Rock, Paper, Shotgun’ blog highlighted this statement in Microsoft’s terms of use agreement:

“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to.”

Meer explained that Microsoft is not informing its users that it is “gathering and storing vast amounts of data on your computing habits,”.

“There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes ‘real transparency,’” he wrote.

Privacy advocates have raised concerns over the policies of IT Giants that are collecting a vast amount of user data, Microsoft Windows 10 seems to be a perfect instrument to do it.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Microsoft Windows 10, privacy)