Data pro­tec­tion under Win­dows 10

Win­dows 10 analyses var­ious per­sonal data. Data affected here are for instance your e-mail address and con­tents of e-mails received and sent out, per­sonal inter­ests and favourites, pur­chase and pay­ment data, your per­sonal address book, etc.

Many of these data are also trans­mitted to Microsoft. Most of these data trans­mis­sion mech­a­nisms how­ever can be switched off. On the one hand, you should con­sider cer­tain cri­teria when first installing (updating) Win­dows 10; on the other, var­ious set­tings can still be adjusted after­wards. Our check-list is meant to assist you with selecting the cor­rect set­tings and to pro­tect your data and all your pri­vate infor­ma­tion in the best pos­sible way.

We have tried to draw up as uni­ver­sally applic­able a set of instruc­tions for pri­vate users as pos­sible. Nev­er­the­less, the indi­vidual con­fig­u­ra­tion options and set­tings may differ in spe­cific cases. This check-list refers to the options avail­able as at 24th May 2019.

Set­tings during Win­dows 10 instal­la­tion (update)

During any Win­dows 10 instal­la­tion (update), the dif­ferent data pro­tec­tion set­ting options are dis­played on a page enti­tled «Choose pri­vacy set­tings for your device», with a clear expla­na­tion given for every set­ting as to what it is for. By default, all set­tings are set to «on».

To pre­vent Win­dows from sending too many data unin­ten­tion­ally, you should switch all set­tings to «off».

If you would like to per­son­alise cer­tain set­tings and partly acti­vate some, please wait until Win­dows has fin­ished installing, and then change your set­tings.

Set­tings after Win­dows 10 instal­la­tion (update)

Should you already have installed (updated) Win­dows 10 with its stan­dard set­tings, you can sub­se­quently adjust set­tings in Win­dows. You will find the rel­e­vant menu under Start > Set­tings > Pri­vacy.

Gen­eral

To pro­tect your device against def­i­nite iden­ti­fi­ca­tion based on an adver­tising ID allo­cated by Win­dows, switch the first option «off».

You should leave the second option «on». This way, you ensure that web­sites are dis­played in the lan­guage set as the Win­dows system lan­guage where pos­sible.

The third option serves for local improve­ment of Win­dows and be left switched «on». Win­dows can launch apps in fre­quent use by you more quickly this way.

Speech

Win­dows and the Cor­tana voice assis­tant can analyse your voice and improve per­sonal rec­om­men­da­tions that way. Since this allows Win­dows 10 to spy on your cal­endar, con­tact data and sim­ilar, you should switch this option off.

Inking & typing per­son­al­i­sa­tion

Win­dows and the Cor­tana voice assis­tant can analyse your hand­writing and improve per­sonal rec­om­men­da­tions that way. Since this allows Win­dows 10 to spy on your cal­endar, con­tact data and sim­ilar, you should switch this option off.

Diag­nos­tics & feed­back

You cannot com­pletely stop Microsoft from col­lecting any data. You can choose whether you would like to transmit few or plenty of data. To transmit as few data as pos­sible, please select: «Basic».

Activity his­tory

Win­dows analyses which appli­ca­tions you have been working with, and offers a his­tory of your activ­i­ties.

If you use a Microsoft account and have cloud syn­chro­ni­sa­tion acti­vated, this will allow you to access the same time­line on sev­eral devices. If you don’t want this, you should switch it off.

Loca­tion

Loca­tion detec­tion should be switched off. By clicking on «Clear», you can delete your loca­tion his­tory stored so far.

Should you have a GPS receiver, you can enable or dis­able loca­tion detec­tion for each of your installed apps indi­vid­u­ally.

Camera

Here you can stop every app auto­mat­i­cally given access to your camera. Switch this option off.

Should you have a camera and would like to allow access to indi­vidual apps, you should do this for each app and enable or dis­able access for each one indi­vid­u­ally.

Micro­phone

Here you can stop every app auto­mat­i­cally given access to your micro­phone Switch this option off.

Should you have a micro­phone and would like to allow access to indi­vidual apps, you should do this for each app and enable or dis­able access for each one indi­vid­u­ally.

Noti­fi­ca­tions

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your noti­fi­ca­tions for all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access for each app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Account info

Since this access is pri­marily required for per­son­alised adver­tising, it is rec­om­mended to switch this option off.

Con­tacts

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your con­tacts for all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access for each app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Cal­endar

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your cal­endar for all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access for each app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Call his­tory

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your call his­tory for all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access to every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Email

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your e-mail by all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access to every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Tasks

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your tasks by all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access to every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Mes­saging

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access by all apps to your mes­sages (SMS or MMS) gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access to every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Radios

You can basi­cally enable or dis­able access to your radios (Blue­tooth, etc.) by all apps gen­er­ally. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access to every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Other devices

An auto­matic exchange of infor­ma­tion, for instance inside a public Wi-Fi net­work, poses a serious secu­rity risk. You should there­fore switch this option off.

Please note how­ever that con­tact­less pay­ments using a smart­phone (with Win­dows 10 mobile phones) are no longer pos­sible this way.

Back­ground apps

Microsoft terms a pro­gram a «back­ground app» if it always remains up-to-date, even if you are not actively using it. With­drawing this right from an app can help you save power. Par­tic­u­larly with mobile devices, this will make for a longer bat­tery life. How­ever, these set­tings have nothing to do with data pro­tec­tion. You can set this option as required by you.

App diag­nos­tics

As per their default set­tings, apps also transmit many diag­nostic data to Microsoft. It is rec­om­mended to switch this option «off».

Auto­matic file down­loads

Has been deac­ti­vated as per your set­tings above.

Doc­u­ments

You can enable or dis­able access to your doc­u­ment libraries by all apps overall. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access by every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Pic­tures

You can enable or dis­able access to your pic­ture libraries by all apps overall. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access by every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Videos

You can enable or dis­able access to your video libraries by all apps overall. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access by every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

File system

You can enable or dis­able access to all your files, including your doc­u­ments, images, videos and local OneDrive files, overall. If you don’t want to gen­er­ally stop all access, you can enable or dis­able access by every app indi­vid­u­ally. Access should only be granted to trust­worthy apps.

Data pro­tec­tion dash­board

To guar­antee the trans­parency of all data col­lected, Microsoft offers a data pro­tec­tion dash­board which lists all infor­ma­tion stored. You can also delete these details as long as you are logged in via a Microsoft account.

Your data pro­tec­tion dash­board is avail­able via this link: https://account.microsoft.com/privacy