Windows 11 and Windows 10 include controversial features that collect information about you and your activities on the PC, then send the data to Microsoft. No clear upfront warning, no concise privacy policy and no official way to disable logging completely: privacy advocates worldwide are alarmed by this telemetry and tracking.

Rolling back from Windows 11 to Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 does not solve the problem, because Microsoft is pushing the same tracking components to those systems through Windows Update. You need to take control of Windows 11 privacy yourself.

What Windows 11 Knows About You

Windows 11 and, with newer updates, Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 collect large amounts of information about you and transmit the following data to Microsoft:

• Everything you type on the keyboard (effectively, Windows 11 comes with a built-in keylogger)
• Wiretapping: Windows 11 can listen to your microphone and engage your webcam in the background without you knowing
• Logins and passwords to Web sites, social networks
• Fragments of email messages, chats and text messages (including those you send and receive via crypto-messengers such as Telegram)
• Your geolocation coordinates (GPS, AGPS or approximate IP-based coordinates)
• Your complete Web browsing history
• Your search queries
• Wi-Fi access points and their passwords
• List of installed applications
• Information about your listening preferences including the names of music tracks you're listening to
• Call logs
• Your calendar entries, events and meetings
• Your address book
• BitLocker escrow keys: if you encrypt your hard drive or eMMC memory with BitLocker, recovery keys are automatically uploaded to Microsoft OneDrive; Microsoft Privacy Policy allows the company to disclose those keys to government agencies by request
• Future Windows 11 updates are rumoured to disable features if the system discovers what it considers to be 'incompatible' or 'unlicensed' software or hardware components

Privacy Protector: Screen for Windows 10 and 11

There is no simple way to turn off Windows tracking entirely. Windows 11 still collects and transmits many types of data with every telemetry toggle disabled in the Privacy section of the new Control Panel, prompting searches for a dedicated Windows 11 privacy tool.

To help you fix Windows 11 privacy issues, we developed an all-in-one privacy screen software for Windows. Privacy Protector for Windows 11 lets you disable select or all tracking services found in Windows 11 and delivered to Windows 8.1, 8 and Windows 7 with updates. On Windows 10, Privacy Protector for Windows 10 exposes the same controls. Privacy Protector for Windows 11 does the following to stop Windows 11 tracking:

• Deletes or disables Telemetry
• Clears and disables DiagTrack Log
• Stops, blocks or removes over 37 tracking services, including tracking activities discovered in these Windows services:
• 1. Cortana background tracking services
  2. Media Center
  3. Customer Experience Improvement Program
  4. Power Efficiency Diagnostics
  5. Family Safety Monitor
  6. Office ClickToRun Service Monitor
  7. Application Experience
  8. Office Telemetry
  9. Disk Diagnostic
  10. Media Center
  11. Windows Search
• Disables Keylogger, preventing Microsoft from collecting information you type on your keyboard
• Disables Windows Defender.
• Disables Cortana to prevent background collection and transmission of data recorded with your microphone and webcam
• Disables Windows Update, letting you block unwanted updates
• Selectively rolls back certain Windows Updates enabling tracking features (for Windows 11, 8.1, 8, and Windows 7)
• Disables certain Telemetry and tracking modules in Microsoft Office 2016
• Optionally blocks Microsoft Office updates
• Lets you uninstall OneDrive
• Lets you disable Bing Search
• Lets you uninstall built-in and non-removable Metro and Universal applications, freeing RAM and stopping additional tracking by these applications
• Lets you remove all Metro and Universal applications, bringing your Windows 11 installation as close to Windows 7 as possible (you'll have to download the old Calculator app though)
• Lets you reinstall Windows 7-8 Picture Viewer
• Blocks more than 60 Microsoft IP addresses engaged in user activity tracking at host level (by modifying the hosts file)
• Blocks IP addresses from the tracking network by creating Windows Firewall rules
• Automatically creates a Restore Point before making changes to the system
• You can revert most Privacy Fixes
• Some changes made by the privacy screen app for Windows 11 cannot be reversed even via System Recovery