Perhaps one of the biggest features in
Windows 10
is the arrival of Cortana, Microsoft's answer to Apple's Siri and
Google Now. Cortana is the "world's first" digital assistant capable of
helping users on many tasks. The more it learns about you, the more it
understands you and it'll be able to assist you more efficiently.
On Windows 10, you can simply say
"Hey, Cortana"
to have the service immediately answer questions about weather
forecasts, set reminders, search the web, find virtually anything on
your PC, keep track of flights, calendar, packages, and a lot more –
Heck! Cortana can even tell you joke if you need a distraction after a
long day of work.
As good as Cortana is there is the issue of privacy as
Cortana as inevitably it has to collect various pieces of information and personal data to learn to assist you accordingly.
Some information collected by the Microsoft's digital assistant
includes information about your contacts, calendar, location, internet
history and favorites, speech, inking and typing, and more.
Although, I personally believe that Cortana is a great tool that will
only get better with time, we have to understand that many users will
find Microsoft collecting certain pieces information as an invasion of
privacy. As such in this how-to guide, you'll learn the options
Microsoft is offering to turn off Cortana and stop personal data
gathering.
Follow these steps to turn off Cortana in Windows 10
It is actually pretty straightforward to disable Cortana, in fact,
there are two ways to do this task. The first option is by launching
Cortana from the search bar on the taskbar. Then, from the left pane
click the settings button, and under "Cortana" (the first option) and
slide the pill switch to the
Off position.
The second option is by launching the Settings app and on
Privacy, go to
Speech, inking, & typing, and click
Stop getting to know me.
Either action will turn off Cortana deleting everything the assistant
knows about you on this devices. Previously collected data from
Cortana's Notebook will not be deleted.
Deleting personalization data from the Microsoft servers
To delete any remaining type of Cortana's data and personal
information, such as Notebook, Reminders, Places, from your account, go
to the
Bing Settings' page. Using the account you are using on your computer, click the
Clear
button for both "Clear personal info" and "Other Cortana Data and
Personalized Speech, Inking, and Typing". In both cases, confirm the
deletion and you'll be good to go.
Turning off additional data gathering options in Windows 10
If you want to stop Microsoft from collecting personal information, you can go to the
Privacy settings page and disable
Send Microsoft info about how I write to help improving typing and writing in the future.
In the same way, you can turn off data collection for location by going to the
Privacy settings page and disabling
Location
globally. Please note that you can also disable location per app. You
can even turn off location for Cortana, but at the time of this writing,
this option cannot be configured just yet. Disabling location globally
will also disable the feature for Cortana.
Things you need to know
While Microsoft is providing different ways to turn off Cortana in
Windows 10, there are a few things you may want to know about this
feature and data collection:
- You can only disable Cortana per device. You cannot simply
disable the digital assistant in one device and expect to be turned off
on every Windows device you own
- The name you set Cortana to call you is also set per device, not globally
- You can clear data and personal information that Microsoft collects
using Cortana, but there isn't a button to stop collecting information
globally in your Microsoft account
- If you do not want Microsoft to store personal information in the
cloud, turn off Cortana on all your devices, then clear all your
personal information from your Microsoft account
- If you disable Cortana in one device, then you clear your
information stored online, but if you have another device using Cortana,
then that information will once again be uploaded and stored in your
account
- Turning off Cortana will make Windows 10 less efficient in trying to make better suggestions for you
- Yes, the search bar on the taskbar will continue to work. It won't
disappear because you disable Cortana. However, you will be limited to
simple searches (locally and from the web)
- You can always turn on Cortana by opening search on the taskbar,
going to the Settings section of the left panel, and sliding the pill
switch to the On position. You can also do it via the Settings app > Privacy > Speech, inking, & typing and clicking the Get to know me button
Wrapping things up
As you can see, Cortana's settings and how Microsoft collects
information is very fragmented. Currently, you have to go to different
locations to turn off Cortana and other features that will trigger data
collection. Users have to access a web page to clear stored information
in their Microsoft accounts, and the Bing Personalization page only
offers options to clear users personal information. It does not provide
an option to stop personal data gathering completely. In part, this is
because, disabling data collection will also affect Bing search results
-- after all the digital assistant is powered by the Microsoft's search
engine.
Furthermore, the only way you can access Cortana's Notebook,
Reminders, and Places is from the device itself, Microsoft does not
provide access to such information on the web. So, if you have multiple
Windows 10 devices and you did disable the assistant and other data
gathering after clearing the data chances are some of your personal
information will upload back-up to your account.
Of course, this is just the beginning, and the work is far from done. Like Google,
Microsoft also offers a dashboard,
which is the home for users to control their accounts, devices,
services, and subscriptions. I think it would be better if everything
the software maker offers were located in a single location to simplify
the user experience.
Microsoft is working to include Cortana on most
Windows 10 devices for the July 29th release,
including PCs, tablets, laptops, and phones. However, at launch the
digital assistant will be limited to certain regions, including United
States, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
And there are other big plans as well. Microsoft has already
announced that the digital assistant won't be exclusive to Windows 10,
and it will be releasing a
standalone app for Android phones, iPhones, and iPads
in the near future. However, the app will have limited functionality,
because of the nature of the app unable to access part of the different
operating systems.
Source:
http://www.windowscentral.com/how-turn-cortana-and-stop-personal-data-gathering-windows-10
