“Windows 10 collects activity history even after deactivation.

“Windows 10 collects activity history even after deactivation.

A user of the popular Reddit site discovered that Windows 10 continues to collect the activity history of users and forward it to Microsoft, even if the user has chosen to disable it. This while the function can be switched off in the dashboard of the operating system.

That’s what a user writes on Reddit yesterday. The anonymous user indicates that he or she has completely disabled the activity history, but that there are still certain apps in the privacy dashboard. It’s not just about UWP apps, it’s also about other applications. Other users also report in a reaction that their system continues to collect information.

App History

That’s remarkable news, but it seems to be well explained. Microsoft collects a history of apps that you launch as part of the Windows 10 diagnostic data. Having the privacy menu set to allow Windows 10 to collect diagnostic data can make it collect detailed information – even if you disable it from the activity history menu.

There are two options around the diagnostic data: basic and complete. If you have the basic information enabled, Windows 10 will only collect information about your device and its settings and whether it is functioning correctly. In the case of full diagnostic data, Windows 10 supplements this with information about the apps you use, the sites you visit and other data.

It is quite likely that many people, without being aware of it, have the function enabled. As a result, in some cases Windows 10 collects more data than people would like. Nevertheless, Microsoft does its best to accommodate users as much as possible in terms of privacy. Before that, the company introduced the privacy dashboard. As the name implies, this includes a number of privacy settings.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.