Latest Windows 10 Insider Preview builds reveal new privacy tools

The latest Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds feature options to view the telemetry information sent to Microsoft and if required, delete them from the computer. The feature was spotted in the latest Redstone 4 (RS4) builds 17063 and 17074. Currently, the commands are just placeholders but will likely be enabled as the OS inches closer to release sometime in H1 2018.

Ever since Microsoft made Windows 10 as a service (WaaS), the OS gained notoriety for collecting a lot of telemetry data. Microsoft published a comprehensive list of the information that it collects and has also been insisting that the data is only being used to improve the OS iteratively and that it will not be sold to third parties. While telemetry collected can never be zero, Microsoft has been proactively including options for more transparency. The Fall Creators Update, for example, enabled users to select privacy options during the installation process itself.

Apart from the above two new privacy tools, RS4 will possibly include a new 'View User Dictionary' option under Speech, Inking & Typing that shows a list of new words that the user has saved to the dictionary. This could be important for the those concerned with the logging of proper nouns such as names of people and places in the dictionary.

It is a welcome move by Microsoft to include these changes in Windows 10 as an answer to some of the sharp criticism it has received over the years regarding the amount of telemetry data collected. Hopefully, this will (at least slightly) improve the adoption of Windows 10 in enterprises working with highly sensitive data.

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