Microsoft says they will use Win 10 to watch and report you to the police

Microsoft says they will use Win 10 to watch and report you to the police

This is no joke. I have been reading one, just one of several agreements they have with Win 10. This agreement is their Privacy Agreement which is NOT the EULA agreement that you are forced to agree with when you install Windows 10. This one is actually hidden away and you have to look for it if you want to read it.
If you read through it quickly you will most likely fail to realize just what they are saying.
I am putting just a few of their statements here as I am still sifting through it carefully but what I am reading is true Big Brother Police State policy.
I want to start with this little nugget. They will report you if you download.
This is excerpted from the "Reasons We Share Personal Data" section.
NOTE THIS PHRASE >> "We share your personal data with your consent or as necessary"
"Or as necessary" means without your consent!

Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:

(MICROSOFT WILL WATCH WHAT YOU DOWNLOAD/UPLOAD AND WILL INFORM THE POLICE OR GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES. INCLUDING SOFTWARE SUCH AS WINDOWS AND MUSIC AND MOVIES. ALSO NOTE THEY ARE READING YOUR EMAILS AND DECIDING IF THE CONTENT SHOULD BE REPORTED TO POLICE)

"comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;"
"protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;"
or
"protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."

NOTICE THAT THEY SAY "but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."

This means they will do it and are not waiting to be served a court order or subpoena to provide this information, they will do it on their own!

HERE ARE SOME OTHER STATEMENTS YOU NEED TO READ
I am just going to highlight some of the scary ones but this entire document is absolutely the product of a police dictatorship.

The data we collect depends on the services and features you use, and includes the following.

Name and contact data. We collect your first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other similar contact data.

Credentials. We collect passwords, password hints, and similar security information used for authentication and account access.

Demographic data. We collect data about you such as your age, gender, country and preferred language.

Interests and favorites. We collect data about your interests and favorites, such as the teams you follow in a sports app, the stocks you track in a finance app, or the favorite cities you add to a weather app. In addition to those you explicitly provide, your interests and favorites may also be inferred or derived from other data we collect.

Payment data. We collect data necessary to process your payment if you make purchases, such as your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number), and the security code associated with your payment instrument.

Usage data. We collect data about how you interact with our services. This includes data, such as the features you use, the items you purchase, the web pages you visit, and the search terms you enter. This also includes data about your device, including IP address, device identifiers, regional and language settings, and data about the network, operating system, browser or other software you use to connect to the services.

Contacts and relationships. We collect data about your contacts and relationships if you use a Microsoft service to manage contacts, or to communicate or interact with other people or organizations.

Location data. We collect data about your location, which can be either precise or imprecise. Precise location data can be Global Position System (GPS) data, as well as data identifying nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots, we collect when you enable location-based services or features. Imprecise location data includes, for example, a location derived from your IP address or data that indicates where you are located with less precision, such as at a city or postal code level.

Content. We collect content of your files and communications when necessary to provide you with the services you use. This includes: the content of your documents, photos, music or video you upload to a Microsoft service such as OneDrive. It also includes the content of your communications sent or received using Microsoft services, such as the:

subject line and body of an email,
text or other content of an instant message,
audio and video recording of a video message, and
audio recording and transcript of a voice message you receive or a text message you dictate.

Security, Safety and Dispute Resolution. We use data to protect the security and safety of our services and our customers, to detect and prevent fraud, and to resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. Our communications and file syncing services systematically scan content in an automated manner to identify suspected spam, viruses, abusive actions, or URLs that have been flagged as fraud, phishing or malware links. We may block delivery of a communication or remove content if it violates our terms.

"Browser Controls for "Do Not Track." Some browsers have incorporated "Do Not Track" (DNT) features that can send a signal to the websites you visit indicating you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, Microsoft does not currently respond to browser DNT signals on its own websites or online services,

Microsoft uses cookies (small text files placed on your device) and similar technologies to provide our services and help collect data. The text in a cookie often consists of a string of numbers and letters that uniquely identifies your computer, but it can contain other information as well. Microsoft apps use other identifiers, such as the advertising ID in Windows, for similar purposes, and many of our websites and applications also contain web beacons or other similar technologies, as described below.

"Microsoft uses cookies to collect data about your online activity and identify your interests"

"we use cookies and other identifiers to gather usage and performance data. For example, we use cookies to count the number of unique visitors to a web page or service"
REMEMBER THAT THESE COOKIES CREATE A UNIQUE ID THAT IDENTIFIES YOUR COMPUTER

Our Use of Web Beacons and Analytics Services

Microsoft web pages may contain electronic images known as web beacons (also called single-pixel gifs) that we use to help deliver cookies on our sites, count users who have visited those sites and deliver co-branded services. We also include web beacons in our promotional email messages or newsletters to determine whether you open and act on them.

In addition to placing web beacons on our own sites, we sometimes work with other companies that advertise on Microsoft sites to place our web beacons on their sites or in their advertisements. This helps us develop statistics on how often clicking on an advertisement on a Microsoft site results in a purchase or other action on the advertiser's site.

Finally, Microsoft services often contain web beacons or similar technologies from third-party analytics providers, which help us compile aggregated statistics about the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns or other operations.
These technologies enable the analytics providers to set or read their own cookies or other identifiers on your device, through which they can collect information about your online activities across applications, websites or other services.

Other Similar Technologies

In addition to standard cookies and web beacons, our services can also use other similar technologies to store and read data files on your computer. But, like standard cookies, these technologies can also be used to store a unique identifier for your computer, which can then be used to track behavior. These technologies include Local Shared Objects (or "Flash cookies") and Silverlight Application Storage.
"THESE TECHNOLOGIES CAN ALSO BE USED TO STORE A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER FOR YOUR COMPUTER (IN YOUR COMPUTER), WHICH CAN THEN TRACK YOUR BEHAVIOR."

Where We Store and Process Personal Data

"Personal data collected by Microsoft may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country where Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or service providers maintain facilities." MICROSOFT HAS FACILITIES IN RUSSIA AND CHINA AS WELL AS A LOT OF OTHER CORRUPT COUNTRIES SO HOW SAFE DO YOU FEEL???

Our Retention of Personal Data

Microsoft retains personal data for as long as necessary to provide the services and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements.

If you remove a credit card from your account, Microsoft will retain transaction records containing your credit card number for as long as reasonably necessary to complete any existing transactions, to comply with Microsoft's legal and reporting requirements, and for the detection and prevention of fraud.
THEY CAN KEEP YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO AND TRANSACTIONS FOREVER IF THEY WANT TO ACCORDING TO THAT STATEMENT.

Bing

When you conduct a search, or use a feature of a Bing-powered experience that involves conducting a search on your behalf, Microsoft will collect the search terms you provide, along with your IP address, location, the unique identifiers contained in our cookies, the time and date of your search, and your browser configuration. If you use Bing voice-enabled services, additionally your voice input and performance data associated with the speech functionality will be sent to Microsoft.
YOUR VOICE INPUT IS WHAT YOU SAY AS WELL AS BEING ABLE TO IDENTIFY YOU BY YOUR VOICE.

Managing Search History
You may clear your search history in Bing Settings. Clearing your history removes it from the Search History service and prevents that history from being displayed on the site, but does not delete information from our search logs, which are retained and de-identified as described above.
YOU CAN CLEAR THE HISTORY IN YOUR PERSONAL BROWSER BUT MICROSOFT WILL STILL HAVE A COPY OF IT.

Cortana
To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lock screen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more.
CORTANA KNOWS ALL AND SEES ALL AND MICROSOFT RECORDS ALL

Location services. Cortana regularly collects and uses your current location and location history..." "Cortana can only work if location services are on, so if you turn them off, Cortana will be disabled."
HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO VISIT THE POPULAR SITES WHEN YOU HAVE TURNED OFF GEOLOCATION???(GEOLOCATION IS A SERVICE THAT PINPOINTS EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE, NOT ONLY THE HOUSE YOU ARE IN BUT THE EXACT LOCATION WITHIN THAT HOUSE WHERE THE PHONE OR COMPUTER YOU ARE USING IS AT THE MOMENT!!) MOST SITES WILL INFORM THAT THEY NEED YOUR GEOLOCATION DATA AND YOU WILL BE DENIED MOST OR ALL ACCESS TO WHAT THAT SITE OFFERS. I AM ABLE TO USE GEOLOCATION ON A SMALL TABLET AND I CAN SEE MY LOCATION ANYWHERE IN MY HOME, EVEN AS I WALK FROM ROOM TO ROOM WITH IT.

Text messages and email. Cortana accesses your messages
CORTANA READS ALL YOUR EMAILS AND TEXTING AND MICROSOFT KEEPS COPIES OF ALL OF IT

Speech and Input Personalization. To help Cortana better understand the way you speak and your voice commands, speech data is sent to Microsoft to build personalized speech models and improve speech recognition.
SPEECH RECOGNITION IS USED BY ALL GOVERNMENT AND POLICE AGENCIES TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY SOMEONE SPEAKING ON A PHONE. YOUR VOICE IS ANALYSED AND CHANGED INTO A UNIQUE ID CODE THAT CAN BE QUICKLY USED TO IDENTIFY YOU WHEN THAT CODE IS COMPARED TO A DATA BASE. IN OTHER WORDS YOUR VOICE IS AS UNIQUE AS YOUR FINGERPRINT AND CAN BE USED TO IDENTIFY YOU.
Apps and services. Cortana uses data collected through other Microsoft services...
For example, Cortana uses data collected by the MSN Sports app so it can automatically display information about the teams you follow. It also learns your favorite places from Microsoft's Maps app...

Browsing history. If you choose to send your full browsing history to Microsoft in Microsoft Edge...
YOU CAN OPT OUT BUT MICROSOFT SITLL COLLECTS IT BECAUSE THEY RECORD EVRRYTHING YOU TYPE WITH THEIR KEYLOGGER WHICH IS SEPARATE FROM EDGE. NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR TRY TO OPT OUT OF MICROSOFT HAS ANOTHER WAY TO RECORD ALL YOU DO, SEE AND SAY ON THE INTERNET.

Cortana won't collect information about sites you visit in InPrivate tabs.
AGAIN, IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE YOUR KEY STROKES ARE RECORDED AND THE BROWSER IS RECORDING AND TRANSMITTING TO MICROSOFT.

MSN

We also collect data about how you interact with MSN Apps and websites, such as usage frequency and content viewed, in order to operate, improve, and personalize MSN Apps and websites, as well as other Microsoft products and services.

MSN Money allows you to access personal finance information from third-party financial institutions. MSN Money only displays this information and does not store it on our servers.
NOTE CAREFULY THAT THEY SAY MSN MONEY DOES NOT RECORD THIS BUT THEY ALREADY STATED THAT THEY RETAIN EVEY BIT OF DATA THEY RECEIVE INCLUDING YOUR CREDIT CARDS NUMBERS AND SECURITY CODE, YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, EVERYTHING. WHENEVER YOU USE YOUR BROWSER TO LOG INTO A BANK ACCOUNT IT IS RECORDED. YOUR BROWSER IS NOT PART OF MSN MONEY!

THIS IS WHAT THEY MENTION ABOUT OFFICE

Search services.
For example, when you search on a particular word or phrase, Office sends to the service the unencrypted text you requested (and when using Insights, in order to provide you with contextually relevant search results, Office will send your requested word or phrase and some surrounding content from your document),
SURROUNDING CONTENT?? HOW MUCH SURROUNDING CONTENT IS NEEDED TO LOOK UP A WORD?? BASED ON THAT STATEMENT ANY AMOUNT UP TO ALL YOU WROTE COULD BE SENT AND YOU WOULD NOT KNOW AS IT DOES NOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH IS REQUIRED.

"as well as information about the software you're using, the locale to which your system is set, and, if required by a third-party content provider, authorization data indicating you have the right to download the relevant content"
WHY DOES ANYONE NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, OR WHAT PROGRAM YOU ARE USING TO LOOK UP THE SPELLING OR DEFINITION OF A WORD?

HERE IS THE LINK TO THEIR PRIVACY STATEMENT
default.aspx
The evil empire strikes -- GB

 

I tell ya what, we are looking to get a new computer-actually have been for awhile. I don't know jack about any other OS other than winblows-But I'm thinking it's time to really start asking questions and learning about other options. Thanks @Georgia_Boy for this post.

 

@melbo - yes and no. SteamOS is just that, a Linux variant, "dedicated" OS that lets you run Steam games. However, not all games available via Steam are compatible with Linux. For example, my son runs Flight Simulator X (commonly referred to as FSX:Steam Edition) which is Windows only. Would it work under wine? Dunno, but with his joystick and throttle quadrant...I'm gonna guess that something will puke if he tries. Doesn't mean we won't try, only that it prolly won't work.

@ghrit - don't waste your time waiting, find something new. There is a lot of collection that can be disabled, however there is some that simply cannot unless you get the Enterprise version of the OS. Case in point:
Windows 10 Feedback, diagnostics, and privacy: FAQ - Microsoft Windows
When configuring your "Feedback & Diagnostics" settings, you can choose to never be prompted to send information back...that doesn't mean the information won't be sent, just that it won't prompt you.
Under diagnostics (same window), you have three choices for the level of information being sent back: Basic, Enhanced & Full. You cannot disable reporting of diagnostic information and what's worse is the data being sent back. Here's the snippet from the official site (link above), emphasis mine:
"Basic information is data that is vital to the operation of Windows. This data helps keep Windows and apps running properly by letting Microsoft know the capabilities of your device, what is installed, and whether Windows is operating correctly. This option also turns on basic error reporting back to Microsoft. If you select this option, we’ll be able to provide updates to Windows (through Windows Update, including malicious software protection by the Malicious Software Removal Tool), but some apps and features may not work correctly or at all."

You have zero choice in the matter.

To top it off, you will get updates, period, end of story. You can defer when you reboot, and you can choose "slow ring" or "fast ring" which basically means first available download or at most a couple of days later but you will be updated and you have no choice. You can't be offline because the first time you go online you will get the update.

By default, you will also act as a peer-to-peer patching server for Microsoft and share the downloaded patches you have already gotten with others who need it still. This could be wonderful on a local network but the default is to provide that back out to the internet as a whole...not cool!

I have already run into three people at work who've updated their home machines and immediately were patched with an Nvidia driver update which blew up their video driver. Took a couple of hours to fix with MS on the phone. One of them has since rolled back to Windows 7.

Part of my job is reviewing new software, including OS upgrades, and my official recommendation at work is to NOT upgrade at this time and to postpone it, at this point, until the day before Windows 7 loses support (January 14, 2020). Yes, it's that bad. While the Enterprise version has the ability to do some additional things security wise, frankly I don't trust them to honor what we configure. Short of blocking outbound access to a moving target, I can't trust the OS and we're in a...very sensitive segment of the financial industry.

However, that is just due to the settings within Windows 10. The more worrying issue is the new privacy policy. It was updated on 8/1/15 and that is where a lot of the language that @Georgia_Boy posted came from. That privacy policy is NOT Windows 10 specific, it is MicroSoft's OFFICIAL PRIVACY POLICY...for ALL of their applications, services and operating systems.

And that's the most disgusting part. I could at least understand (although never agree with) a stance that "you got it for free, we need to monetize the install and feed you ads" justification. But what about a whitebox PC that you built...that's not eligible for free, you're paying for it, but you get the same invasive behavior and tracking, etc. @ghrit, you are going to have to pay for it if it's not free but you get saddled with all the crap still. No good in my book. You don't get to double dip.

I've been running Linux as my base OS for a year now and will continue to do so. I have just moved off of Google Drive (because of lack of support in Linux) and moved to DropBox but I use CryptKeeper and EncFS (compatible with Windows, OSX, Linux, Android and iOS) to encrypt everything ON MY END before it gets pushed to the cloud. Sorry DropBox, you aren't going to get any compression out of my stuff because encrypted data can't be compressed by its very nature.

I'm considering waxing the Windows machine or at the very least dual booting to Linux (probably go with one of the *buntu's) for the family machine and my son can get online and fly with Windows 8.1 and that's it.

I'm going to start a new thread with replacements for the OS and tools you use in a Windows based world in a few minutes.