With its ability to respond to your verbal commands, answer questions, and perform various tasks, Cortana is certainly one of the handiest and most helpful features in Windows 10. And the more you share about yourself with Cortana, the more effective it can be in helping you manage your daily activities.
But there are always privacy concerns when you share data about yourself with today's technology, especially if such data ends up in the hands of advertisers and other third-party entities. Let's look at some of the options for sharing more or less personal info with Cortana.
In Windows 10, click on the Cortana microphone icon or click in the Cortana search field to open the Cortana pane. Then click on the Notebook icon (third from the top of the Cortana pane), and the Notebook pane opens to display a variety of different categories.
Click on the top category for "About me."
Here you can share with Cortana your home and work address as well as other locations, so it can refer to those places more easily, particularly if you need directions to a certain locale. In the "About me" pane, click "Edit favorites."
At the Favorites window, click on the plus sign in the lower-right corner.
Let's say you want to add your home address. Type your address, followed by the city and state. You should eventually see your address listed. Click on it.
Add a nickname if you wish. Then turn on the option that says: "Set as home." Click on the save icon at the bottom of the window.
Repeat that process for your work address.
You can add other locations. Just remember to come up with a nickname ("My sister's house"), so you know what it is. If you wish to change or remove a location, right-click on it, and from the pop-up menu, click on Edit or Delete.
Now, return to the Notebook and start selecting each of the categories, beginning with Academic, then moving to Eat & Drink, Events, Finance, Getting around, Health & fitness, Meetings & reminders, Movies & TV, News, On the go, Packages, Reservations, Shopping, Special days, Sports, Travel, and finally Weather.
Carefully review each category to decide how much information you wish to share and which options you want to turn on or off. Some of the information collected by certain categories, such as Movies & TV, Sports, and Special days, may seem relatively innocuous.
Other information, such as that gathered by Finance, Meetings & reminders, and Travel, may strike you as items you'd prefer not to share. As always, the balance is between convenience and privacy, and that's a balance only you can choose.
A Microsoft webpage called Cortana and privacy can help you better decide how much or how little data to share, so this page is definitely worth a read as you review your Cortana settings.
Next, click on the Notebook icon again and select the Permissions setting. Here you can manage what information Cortana can gather about you, including location, contacts and communications, and browsing history.
Finally, click on the link at the bottom of the Permissions pane for "Speech, inking & typing privacy settings." A settings window called "Getting to know you" pops up. Here you can click on links to learn more about these settings, read Microsoft's privacy statement, and manage the personal information collected by the company. You can also stop the collection of information altogether and erase data already gathered by clicking on the button to "Stop getting to know me."
For more, check out these other Windows 10 tutorials:
- How to Turn on Cortana by Voice in Windows 10
- How to Tweak Your Tiles in Windows 10
- How to Customize, Control the Command Prompt in Windows 10
- How to Customize Your Default Apps in Windows 10
- How to Use and Tweak the Start Screen in Windows 10