Customize Your Privacy Settings (23H2) (Archived)

Like its predecessor, Windows 11 gives you numerous privacy-related options to configure. But like its predecessor, Windows 11 also doesn’t give you total control over your privacy: There’s no way to prevent Microsoft from collecting telemetry data, which it uses to help make the system more reliable for everyone. Instead, all you can do is minimize the amount of data that Windows 11 collects within the confines that Microsoft has established.

Your first chance to configure your Windows 11 privacy settings and the resulting data collection comes during the Windows Setup Out of Box Experience (OOBE), when you first set up a new PC or perform an upgrade or clean install.

In this screen, you are given the chance to disable several privacy settings, all of which are otherwise enabled by default. Our advice is to disable all of these settings except for “Location” and “Find my device” during the OOBE. But in this chapter, we explain those recommendations further and help you understand where you can correct any mistaken privacy settings configurations you may have made during the initial Windows 11 setup.

Correctly configure the key Windows 11 privacy settings

You review and manage the Windows 11 privacy settings by opening the Settings app and navigating to Privacy & security.

Examining all of these options is tedious and it will be unclear to most which are the most important to consider changing. That’s by design: Though Microsoft provides an incredible list of privacy-related options to consider–an act we call privacy theater–the most obvious and desirable option, for disabling the telemetry data that Windows 11 sends back to Microsoft automatically, is not among them.

Given this, we have repeatedly scoured this mountain of privacy settings to try and determine which are the most deserving of your attention. And we are surprised to report that the several privacy settings that Microsoft presents during the OOBE are, in fact, among the most important. And so the single biggest way you can protect your privacy while using Windows 11 is to configure these settings correctly.

Hopefully, you will make these configuration changes during the OOBE, before you start using Windows 11. But if not, we have your back. Here, we explain where you can find these options in Privacy & security settings. Perhaps not surprisingly, they’re spread out all over the place.

Location

When Location services is enabled, Windows can provide location-based features like weather (in Widgets and the Weather app) and driving directions and alerts (in Widgets and the Maps app), and Windows and Microsoft Store apps can individually request to use your location data.

The catch is that Microsoft will also use your location data to improve its location services. But because doing so is mostly innocuous or even desirable, we recommend that most configure setting this setting to “On.”

To do so, open Privacy & security settings and select “Location” under “App permissions.”

Here, you can toggle location services globally, toggle it for all apps, or individually determine which apps can access your location data.

Find my device

Windows 11 supports Microsoft’s Find my device service, which stores the last known location of the PC you are now using with your Microsoft account. You can view all of the PCs and other devices associated with your Microsoft account and access Find my device on the Microsoft account website.

Find my device is an incredibly useful feature. And because it can help you find a lost or stolen PC, we recommend that you configure this setting to “On.”

To do so, open Privacy & security settings and select “Find my device” under “Security.” This one is easy, it’s either “On” or it’s “Off.”

Optional diagnostic data

Microsoft requires that individuals using Windows 11 allow it to collect telemetry data–which it calls diagnostic data here and in its Windows privacy report–so that it can detect, diagnosis, and fix problems with everyone’s PCs as quickly as possible.

You can find out exactly what data it collects on the Microsoft Learn website, but you cannot disable this data collection as an individual: Only corporations with thousands of users can do so.

Basic telemetry data is one thing, but Microsoft would like to collect even more data, including your web browsing history, connectivity and configuration data, inking and speech data, typing data, and more. We strongly recommend configuring this setting to “Off,” which will disable this additional and optional data collection.

To do so, open Privacy & security settings, select “Diagnostics & feedback” under “Windows permissions,” and ensure that “Send optional diagnostic data” is set to “Off.”

You may wish to delete the diagnostic data that Microsoft has collected on this PC already. You do so by clicking “Delete diagnostic data” on this page and then clicking the “Delete” button that appears. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft doesn’t offer a way to automate this so that it happens on a schedule automatically.

Don’t bother with the “View diagnostic data” option: The data you view in the Diagnostic Data Viewer that it mentions is raw XML, an unfriendly markup language that is not in any way useful.

Inking & typing

This setting will send additional and optional data associated with inking and typing to Microsoft so that it can improve its language recognition and suggestion capabilities.

Though this is the most innocuous of the privacy settings you can configure during Windows Setup, we recommend configuring this setting to “Off,” which will disable this optional data collection.

To do so, open Privacy & security settings, navigate to “Diagnostics & feedback” under “Windows permissions,” and locate “Improve inking and typing.” You can expand this option to make sure you’re not sending too much data to Microsoft.

There is another inking and typing setting in Privacy & security settings called “Inking and typing personalization,” which you can find under “Windows permissions” too. This setting is related to the custom dictionary that Microsoft creates for you as you write with a smart pen and/or keyboard and is generally innocuous and useful and should be left enabled. That said, you may want to review your custom dictionary from time to time here. And, if desired, you can delete the entire dictionary (but not, oddly, individual words).

Tailored experiences

When enabled, this setting lets Microsoft use your diagnostic data, including optional diagnostic data (aside from web browsing history) if enabled, so that it can allegedly offer you customized tips, recommendations, and advertising.

But this is really just about advertising: There is nothing “tailored” about the experiences that Microsoft offers Windows 11 users. Instead, it spams you with advertisements to use its other products and services. For this reason, we strongly recommend not enabling this feature. Instead, configure it to “Off.”

To find this setting, open Privacy & security settings, navigate to “Diagnostics & feedback,” and make sure “Tailored experiences” is set to “Off.”

Advertising ID

Related to the above setting, Microsoft will assign a unique identifier called an advertising ID to your user account on each PC you use so that it and third-party advertisers can track your activities online, see which websites and apps you use, and then offer you customized advertisements based on that data.

For obvious reasons, you should not enable this setting: Instead, configure it to “Off.” To do so, open Privacy & security settings, click “General” under “Windows permissions,” and then locate the option “Let apps show me personalized ads using my advertising ID.”

We occasionally hear from readers who believe that targeted advertising is somehow preferable to non-targeted advertising. Don’t fall for this trap: Non-targeted ads are just as effective as those that track you online. There is no benefit to allowing Microsoft and its advertising partners to track your activities.

While you’re here, check out the three settings below that option as well. These are discussed later in the chapter.

Presence

On PCs with compatible proximity sensors, the OOBE will display this additional setting so that you can globally enable or disable the Windows 11 Presence Sensing feature, which the system uses to detect you and automatically wake up the PC when you approach and then turn off the display when you leave.

Presence Sensing is an incredibly useful feature. But when you enable it in the OOBE, Windows 11 will by default also allow apps–downloaded from the Microsoft Store and the web–access Presence Sensing too. This is not mentioned in the OOBE, so we recommend configuring Presence to “Off” and then reviewing this later in Privacy & security settings. Unless, of course, you are comfortable with apps using this feature.

To review this setting, open Privacy & security settings, scroll down to “App permissions” and click “Presence Sensing.”

Here, you can toggle “Presence Sensing access” to “On” and then consider whether you should enable apps–Store and/or desktop apps specifically–to access this feature. Unfortunately, it’s hard to recommend a course of action here because Presence Sensing is so new and we’ve never even seen an app try to use it. For now, we are leaving everything enabled for testing purposes and will adjust our advice as needed when we learn more.

Additional privacy settings to consider changing

In addition to the several big bucket privacy settings that Microsoft presents you during the Windows OOBE, there are several others hidden away in Privacy & security sensing worth examining and, in most cases, configuring differently.

Activity history

By default, Windows 11 tracks all your activities–which apps and services you use, which files you open, and the websites you browse–and stores that data on the PC. If you enabled the “Tailored experiences” and “Advertising ID” settings described earlier, it will then send that information to Microsoft on some unspecified schedule. If you disabled those settings as recommended, you should also configure this setting to “Off.” And clear your history while you’re at it.

Windows permissions > General

Let websites show me locally relevant content by accessing my language list. This seemingly innocuous and even useful setting is less useful than it may appear: In this context, “locally relevant” isn’t all that local, because your “language list”–which for most people is a single language–is so geographically broad and is not in any way local. For example, “English (United States).” We disable this option.

A> You can find your language settings, including the list of languages configured on this PC, in the Settings app: Navigate to Time & language and review the language(s) listed in the “Language” section.

Let Windows improve Start and search results by tracking app launches. This easily misunderstood feature has nothing to do with tracking your activities and is instead exactly what Microsoft claims: It can make the results you obtain with Search more accurate for you. That is, if you fumble-finger while searching for the Calculator app and mistakenly type cam but then select “Calculator” from the search results, the next time you search and type cam, “Calculator” will be the top choice in the results (ahead of “Camera,” which is technically more accurate). We recommend leaving this setting “On.”

Show me suggested content in the Settings app. Microsoft peppers Windows 11 with so-called suggestions, which are really just advertisements for other Microsoft apps, services, or features. There is no benefit to these intrusions, so we strongly recommend configuring this option to “Off.”

Windows permissions > Diagnostics & feedback

Feedback frequency. Windows 11 will prompt you to provide it with feedback from time to time, often after some kind of system or app failure. In a perfect world, Microsoft would respond to this feedback by improving the product and by letting you know that it appreciates your efforts. But this is not a perfect world, and Microsoft appears to ignore most of the feedback it receives about Windows 11. So there is no reason for you to be bothered with prompts to provide it: Configure this option to “Never.”

Windows permissions > Search permissions

Cloud content search. By default, Search will personalize the results it provides using your content in Bing, OneDrive, Outlook, and other Microsoft services. But you can disable this integration so that Search only delivers results from your PC. To do so, set the Microsoft account option (and/or the Work or school account option) to “Off.”

Show search highlights. We discuss this in the Search chapter, but you should disable “Show search highlights” under “More settings,” as this feature is designed solely to put you in front of Microsoft advertising displayed on Microsoft online services like MSN and Bing.