WW 656: The Wide World of Nose Scrolling

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One of the reasons that there are still so many Windows 7 PCs in German federal agencies is that the German Data Protection Officers have stated that Windows 10 does not comply with GDPR - the telemetry is encrypted and not documented and it sends the data to the USA, therefore it is not compliant and it shouldn’t be used in business or government, until it is compliant.

The Dutch had similar issues with Office 365 last year and Microsoft did alter their practices there.

And, yes, you can preview the data that is supposed to be sent, but as the protocol is not documented, there is no way to be 100% certain that what is shown is 100% all that is sent - is a header with a UID added to the message, for exampe?

Until Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise allow the telemetry to be completely disabled, they are considered not fit for purpose. The BSI (Federal Agency for Security in IT) issued a workaround, you can disable the service “DiagTrack” and no telemetry will be sent, but that is a hack and doesn’t help the general compliance of Windows 10.

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So what are the agencies going to do?

Microsoft were asked to sort out their telemetry, either fully document it or allow it to be disabled.

They haven’t responded yet, so the public and private sectors in Germany are in a sort of holding pattern, either they stick with Windows 7 until Microsoft sort out the compliance problems or they have to take their chances with Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise and tie it down as best they can.

I wonder what the number of Windows 7 Devices within the US Department of Defense there are? I bet a ton. I bet they are writing a really big check