Windows Snoops on User Typing Habits Without Consent

Microsoft's Windows operating system has been collecting typing samples from users, sparking concerns about data privacy. The feature, called 'inking and typing personalization,' allows Microsoft to collect samples of typed and handwritten content to improve language-based features such as autocorrect, spelling, word recommendations, and handwriting recognition.

According to Microsoft's own documentation, the company says it doesn't receive a continuous record of everything a user types and that samples are processed to remove unique identifiers, sequencing information, email addresses, and numerical values. However, critics argue that even anonymized data can be compromised once it leaves the user's machine.

Users who want to disable this feature can do so in their Windows settings by turning off 'Improve inking and typing' under diagnostics & feedback. However, disabling this setting does not stop all diagnostic data from being sent to Microsoft, and users may lose their custom dictionary as a result.