Customize Your Windows 11 Privacy Settings

Windows 11 violates your privacy by default, and it will then go on to badger you to let it do so to an even greater degree repeatedly as you use it. And while Microsoft provides a sea of privacy-related options to configure, it's not possible to fully disable certain behaviors using the interfaces in Windows 11. For example, there's no way to fully 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 11 Setup Out of Box Experience (OOBE), which appears 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. My advice is to disable all of these settings except for "Location," "Find my device," and, if available and you enjoy this functionality, "Presence," during the OOBE.

But it's possible if not likely that you might have skipped past this screen during Windows Setup like Microsoft wants or don't remember how you configured these options. So this chapter explains my recommendations further and helps you correct any mistaken privacy settings configurations you may have made during the initial Windows 11 configuration.

If you can't be bothered wading through all this--Microsoft purposefully scatters the most important Windows 11 privacy options throughout the Settings app and, as noted, doesn't even offer a way to turn off telemetry--then you can skip ahead to Completely disable Windows 11 telemetry and tracking at the end of the chapter. There, I describe a third-party utility that fixes the privacy issues in Windows 11 with just a few clicks.
Manually configure key Windows 11 privacy settings
You review and manage Windows 11 privacy settings by opening the Settings app and navigating to Privacy & security.

Examining all of these options is tedious, and it's unclear which are the most important to consider changing. That's by design: Though Microsoft provides an incredible list of privacy-related options to consider--what I 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, I have repeatedly scoured this mountain of privacy settings to try and determine which are the most deserving of your attention. And I am surprised to report that the several privacy settings that Microsoft presents during the OOBE are, in fact, among the most important. And so the most obvious 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...