I’m not sure we’ve gone a week without a new story about Windows 10 invading our privacy, and this week is no exception. Earlier this week, The Independent noticed that Windows 10 will automatically send parents detailed logs of their childrens’ Internet activity by default if they open up a family account on the computer.
There’s no warning for either the children or the parents that this is happening, which raises some very serious questions about Microsoft’s right to decide what information parents have access to.
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Now, it’s worth saying up front that there are certain things that parents might want or need to know about their children, especially if their search terms indicate that they might be depressed or interested in something potentially dangerous that could be explained more thoroughly and with better context in a face-to-face conversation.
That said, it should be up to the individual families whether or not they have the ability to see every online search and webpage the children are visiting. Some commenters have pointed out that as awful of a place as the Internet can be, it also contains a wealth of information for children who might want to learn something without approaching their parents.
Of course, you can turn the feature off, but others have questioned whether or not Microsoft is still collecting the data and just not sending it to the parents. Once again, Microsoft is alarming Windows 10 users with its total lack of transparency.
