Windows 10 Location History Uploaded to Microsoft

Need to know

• Companies don't need GPS trackers to determine your location
• Microsoft shares anonymised location data with other companies
• You have some control over your data, just not over everything

Microsoft tracks and uses your location in many ways. The company assures people this information is anonymised before it reaches their servers, even if information technology's synced to your Microsoft account. But not all programs and apps on your device make the same hope.

And unlike phone apps on Android or iOS, Windows 10 desktop apps don't necessarily ask for permission or tell you what they're doing.

How does Microsoft track your location?

Since the demise of the Windows Phone operating organisation (Bone), merely about all Microsoft devices run on Windows for desktop. Currently, the most widely-used OS is Windows 10, though it volition shortly be replaced by Windows xi.

You might take already noted that Windows 10 devices like laptops, desktops and hybrid tablets often don't have GPS. How then does Microsoft know where y'all are? The answer is a little chip of everything. Its methods vary in accurateness, only by combining some or all of the beneath, the visitor can determine your exact location.

• GPS: Some Windows devices do have GPS, but they're in the minority.
• Nearby Wi-Fi networks: Microsoft actively collects location data on Wi-Fi access points. If your device merely detects 1 of these, it knows your crude location. The more it can discover at one time, the better information technology can pinpoint you lot.
• Jail cell (mobile) towers: Some Windows 10 devices tin can connect to mobile information via a SIM carte. Microsoft can tell your rough location based on which mobile towers it tin find.
• IP address: Your device'southward IP address can be used to determine your location, sometimes downwards to the suburb.

But there's more than. You might list your device'southward time zone every bit being in a particular urban center. If your calculator connects to a Bluetooth device that Microsoft or an app knows is located in your home, that's a big giveaway.

And, if you're signed into your Microsoft business relationship on your device, your location can be inferred based on the data collected from other devices that are as well signed in.

What does Microsoft do with your location data?

Some Windows 10 features work ameliorate with more accurate locations. Examples include weather, maps, and Find My Device. Some desktop apps too rely on Windows location data for special features or bones functionality.

But Microsoft shares its anonymised location data with Here Technologies, a location platform with more than 8000 employees beyond 56 countries, and in return it can access information uploaded by other partners.

Cheers to multiple partnerships like the i information technology has with Microsoft, Here Technologies has data roofing more than than 200 countries and territories.To provide a telescopic for some of its operations, more than 21 million vehicles provide existent-time data, contributing to the more 15 billion data points Here Technologies gathers daily.

This data can be put to myriad uses, just a few of which could help with supply chains, marketing, and tracking the stores yous visit and how long yous're there to evaluate marketing effectiveness and increase your brand loyalty.

So, Microsoft doesn't necessarily need to effigy out your precise location by itself. It's potentially getting plenty information to fill up in the gaps from Hither Technologies or whatever location partner information technology signs upwardly with in future.

Adjusting Windows 10 location permissions

Yous have a degree of control over which Windows features and apps tin access or gather location data on a device, or you can fifty-fifty disable it entirely. Y'all can as well clear your location history.

Unless you lot utilise location-specific apps, such as Bing maps, a stationary computer doesn't do good much from giving location permissions. Simply if you regularly travel with a laptop or tablet, you might consider leaving it on and then that you tin can employ the Detect My Device feature if it gets lost or stolen.

On a Windows 10 computer, press the Start key and type "location", then select Location and privacy settings. From here, y'all can toggle which Windows apps tin can admission your precise location (Microsoft's definition of "precise" is unclear), and lock private desktop apps out of the location information Windows has on you.

To clear your location history, click Articulate underneath "Location history".

You tin disable location data by clicking the toggle below "Allow desktop apps to admission your location".

If you'd still similar Windows to have a full general idea of where you are (though it likely volition, anyhow), you can set a default location. Under "Default location" clickSet default. When the map appears, click in the search box and start typing the urban center, suburb, or verbal address y'all're after.

If y'all're curious how precise a dewdrop Microsoft has on you, start typing the name of your dwelling or workplace's metropolis or suburb and run across if they appear labelled as "Work" or "Home".

Even if you call up you oasis't given Microsoft precise data, it might nevertheless know a lot about where yous spend your time.

These settings prevent programs accessing the data Windows gathers about you lot, but they don't stop them from working information technology out themselves. An app developer could use many of the same methods – Wi-Fi networks, mobile towers, Bluetooth connections – to paint its own picture of your whereabouts, though i that likely doesn't accept the resources of the world'south fourth well-nigh valuable make.

There's no easy way to measure or cake desktop apps from doing this, so exist careful what you lot install on your computer.

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Source: https://www.choice.com.au/consumers-and-data/data-collection-and-use/who-has-your-data/articles/how-and-why-microsoft-tracks-your-location

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