Privacy in Windows 10 has been a controversial subject ever since the advent of the operating system. The telemetry data that Microsoft collects from the OS has been viewed as the company "spying" on its customers by many regulators. In fact, France's data protection commissioner criticized Microsoft for collecting excessive information last year, and only recently withdrew its complaint after the company made changes to its data collection practices.

Microsoft has been playing its part to mitigate the spread of such perceptions. Earlier this year, the company launched a privacy dashboard, giving users "more control" over their data in Windows 10. With the growing threat of ransomware attacks and data theft, the firm will now be repeatedly reminding users to review these privacy settings.

Starting this week, Microsoft will be notifying users to who have not updated to the Windows 10 Creators Update to check their privacy settings, in a move that may well stir memories of the "Get Windows 10" app. This subset of users will be able to defer the process up to five times, with the final prompt asking them to confirm the settings. The company claims that this review process will take only a "few moments" so it is advisable that users pay heed to the notifications. The notification window will appear as follows:

Microsoft has clarified that you will not be forcibly updated to the Creators Update once you confirm the privacy settings, even if your machine is ready for the update.

In addition, the company has also stated that it will be notifying users to upgrade to the latest feature update - which is the Creators Update, for now - if they're running a version of the operating system that is reaching end-of-service. As it currently stands, users on the original version of Windows 10 (version 1507) Home / Pro / Education / Enterprise will be notified to upgrade to the latest feature update, so that their device is secure. However, Microsoft has not clarified how frequently this notification will occur.

The move is certainly understandable considering the recent rise in ransomware attacks, but it'll be interesting to see how the public responds, keeping in view the "Get Windows 10" fiasco.

Source: Microsoft