We all know Cortana is one of the largest features in the history of the Windows platform with the preview of Windows 10. Microsoft's Cortana is the perfect answer to Apple's Siri and Google Now. Cortana is the very first personal digital assistant capable of helping other users on many tasks. The more she learns about you, the more she can better assist you.
We can simply say "Hey, Cortana" on our Windows 10 to activate our very first digital assistant Cortana on our Windows platform that can help us to respond immediately to answer some of the basic questions about weather forecasts, to set reminders, to search the web, by keeping track of flights and many more. Cortana can even tell you a joke if you ask her "please tell me a joke", she can even sing a song for you if you say "sing a song for me".
Cortana is a good feature of Windows 10 but there is also an issue of privacy since Cortana must fetch various pieces of information and your personal data to assist you better. The information can be your contacts, calendar appointments, your locations, internet history and many more.
I personally believe Cortana is a great feature that will only get better and better with time by collecting your personal data and information. So in this article we will learn how to stop Cortana from collecting our personal data and information.
Procedure
Use the following procedure to turn off Cortana.
Its a simple and straight forward way to disable Cortana. We can disable Cortana using one of the following two methods.
Method 1
The first method is by simply launching Cortana Search from the task bar as in the following:
Figure 1: Cortana Search Icon
Next click on the settings button and under "Cortana" slide the button to the Off position.
Figure 2: Cortana Setting
Method 2
The second method is by launching the Settings app.
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Figure 3: Setting AppNext go to the Speech, inking, & typing option and click on Stop getting to know me.
Figure 4: Stop getting to know me
When you click on the Stop getting to know me button you will be prompted by a warning message and click on the Turn Off button to turn Cortana Off.
Figure 5: Turn Off
Using any of those methods we can turn off Cortana and deleting everything she knows about you except the previously collected data from Cortana's Notebook will not be deleted.
Turning off additional data gathering options in Windows 10
If you want to stop Microsoft from collecting your personal information such as location you can go to the Privacy settings page, then go to the General tab and disable the "Send Microsoft info about how I write to help improving typing and writing in the future" option.
Figure 6: Send Microsoft Info
To turn of the location gathering, go to the Privacy settings app, then go to the Location tab and turn off the Location.
Figure 7: Turn off Location
You can also disable a location for a specific app.
I hope this article helps you to understand how to turn off Cortana and stop Microsoft from collecting our personal information.