Microsoft is bringing a new data collection viewer to defend against Windows 10 privacy complaints

Microsoft has been heavily criticised by various privacy groups ever since it first launched Windows 10 back in July 2015.[caption id="attachment_4127553" align="alignleft" width="380"] The Microsoft logo. Reuters.[/caption]The criticism is not limited to privacy groups and extends to orders by the government such as France, which ordered the company to stop tracking users running Windows 10 back in 2016. After France, both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and European Union (EU) criticised the company for the amount of data it was collecting from its users.Almost a year after revealing what data Microsoft collects, the company is stepping up its game by coming clean in front of its users. According to a report by The Verge, Microsoft has added a new Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer in the test versions of Windows 10 so that its users can check all the data that Microsoft is collecting on Windows 10. It is worth noting that the reason that Microsoft is collecting all this anonymous Windows 10 data is so that it can see how users are using its Operating System and thus improve the OS while making important product decisions.[caption id="attachment_4096343" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Image credit: Microsoft[/caption]As pointed in the report, the new viewer works as a decryption tool for users to check the encrypted and anonymous data is being sent to Microsoft servers. The data includes information about the connectivity of the device, peripherals connected to the device, configuration options, data about the performance of the device, installed apps, movie consumption and more. This move will make the data collection process much more transparent to users. Microsoft is probably hoping that the disclosure will convince users and privacy groups that Microsoft isn't collecting an unreasonable amount of data.