Privacy

According to Office 365 notification MC187538, Microsoft plans to start asking users to give feedback about Teams in pop-up surveys within the app to help Microsoft improve functionality. That all sounds OK until you consider that Microsoft will control the data it obtains from users and tenants will have no insight into what their users have told Microsoft. That's not right.

Office ProPlus Version 1904 boasts new privacy controls and Microsoft has documented how it thinks about required and optional data collected from users. Office 365 still lacks privacy controls for the server apps. It remains to be seen if customers will be happy and consider that Microsoft has solved the GDPR issues identified in the Dutch DPIA report in November 2018.

Microsoft has announced that version 1904 of Office ProPlus (click to run) for Windows includes new privacy controls to allow organizations limit the data sent back by the Office apps. There's no word about when they will deliver similar controls for Office for Mac, Office mobile, and the Office 365 server apps. Privacy is a real challenge in a world where cloud apps gather so much telemetry to measure performance, reliability, and other aspects, but it's good that organizations will now be able to control how much they share with Microsoft.

Delve is a great way to learn about important documents other Office 365 users are working on, but it can sometimes reveal something that it shouldn't. Mostly this is the fault of the owners of SharePoint sites where documents are stored, but there are situations when people just don't want Delve or other Graph-based applications revealing anything about their communications.

In this Ask the Admin, I'll show you the new Diagnostic Data Viewer in Windows 10.

The General Data Protection Regulation applies to any business storing personal data on EU citizens.

Todd and Shane discuss SharePoint Online conditional access, PowerShell, Privacy Dashboard, an AI company, and trolling the patent filings.

This week’s snippets span the tenth anniversary of PowerShell, a survey indicating that Office 365 has a solid lead in deployments over G Suite, Windows 10 Mobile finally gets the new authenticator app, Outlook starts to look like mini-CRM, why dynamic groups don’t work for Teams and Planner, and an interesting document from Microsoft describing Office 365 tenant isolation.

Microsoft’s fight to keep its European customers’ data private is back in the news. The U.S. Justice Department wants a court to revisit a ruling preventing the government from reading email stored in an Irish data center. Not only is the data stored outside the U.S., but the owner of the data isn’t a U.S.… Read More

Microsoft Windows 10 comes under fire for privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week reopened the case against Redmond’s telemetry and personalization efforts. Despite acknowledging previous press stories were wildly incorrect, EFF paralegal staffer Amul Kalia argues his case with sincere passion...

Russell Smith shows us how to stop various Windows 10 apps and OS components from sending or receiving data to and from Microsoft.

Here's a quick tip on how to set the telemetry level in Windows 10 using Group Policy.

Ever since the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft has come under fire about the privacy implications of the OS and now the company is fighting back.

Russell Smith discusses the changes to the wording of Microsoft's Services Agreement and how Windows 10 might help decrease the amount of pirated software.

Late last week, Microsoft announced that Brad Smith, its chief legal counsel since the antitrust days, has been promoted to president and chief legal officer. This is notable for a few reasons, not the least of which is that Mr. Smith is the first Microsoft president since 2002. Brad Smith will report directly to Microsoft… Read More