Windows 8 PC Settings – Privacy

How to Access It

• Invoke Settings Charm either through the Charms Bar or key combo “Win + I”.
• Select “Change PC Settings” option located at the bottom of the Settings Charm pane. This will launch PC Settings.
• Select “Privacy” tab from the left pane of PC Settings.

This section provides three settings as of now.

• Location: The first option lets you specify if you want Metro apps to know your location or not. Personally, I have never been a fan of constantly revealing where I am sitting right now. So, I don’t want the apps, too, to not know my location. I always keep it off. But this can also be helpful to certain apps like the Weather app. If this is turned on, the Weather app will automatically deduce your location and show the weather data of your city. Otherwise, you will have to manually specify your location so that the app can display the data of your city.
• Name and Account Picture: Toggle this option to decide whether the apps should know you name, as well as what you look like.
• Application Data: In order to improve Windows Store, Microsoft asks some data from the Metro apps as feedback. You can decide whether the apps should send such data or not.

This section also provides a link to the privacy statement from Microsoft that specifies what data they will collect and what data they won’t.]]>