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Your feedback is helping shape Windows privacy

Written By published August 7, 2017

In April, we outlined significant enhancements made to the Windows 10 Creators Update that put you in more control to make informed decisions about your privacy.

Those enhancements included improving in-product information, updates to the Microsoft privacy statement, and publishing more information about the diagnostic data we collect.

Since then, feedback we’ve received about the Creators Update has been positive. This is great news to us because what we hear from you directly impacts the improvements we make.

For example, 71 percent of customers are selecting Full diagnostics data to help us fix things and improve Microsoft products.  While your direct feedback like, “The privacy settings added to clean installs are a boon for the privacy minded,” and “Very well done,” is great to hear, we know there is still work to do to meet and anticipate the expectations across our diverse customer base and provide you with the best privacy experience possible.

We’ve also seen a positive reception to the web-based privacy dashboard which allows you to see and control your activity data across multiple Microsoft services. Announced back in January, the privacy dashboard has been visited by more than 23 million people on accounts.microsoft.com.

With more than 500 million devices running Windows 10, the opportunity to refine our approach to privacy and implement your feedback is exciting.  We are also ensuring Windows 10 is compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that goes into effect in 2018. Fundamentally, the GDPR is about protecting and respecting an individual’s privacy rights and Microsoft’s enduring commitment to trust is well aligned through the privacy principles that shape the way we build our products and services.

For those of you who participate in the Windows Insiders Program, you can expect to see some of the privacy changes showing up in Insider builds in the coming weeks, and we welcome your feedback in helping us make create the best Windows ever.

I look forward to a continued dialogue and thank you for your feedback – please keep it coming!

-Marisa