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Microsoft products and your data

Published: October 2023

Microsoft uses customer data that’s contributed by people like you to improve our products and services and keep them running smoothly, to provide you with personalized experiences, and to help keep you safe. Here are some of the most common categories of data we collect.

Web browsing and online searches

To speed up web browsing, we collect and use browsing history to predict where you want to go. To learn more, see Browsing data and privacy.

Read about Microsoft Edge in the Privacy Statement

Like many search engines, we use your Bing search history, and the history aggregated from other people, to give you better search results.

Read about Bing search in the Privacy Statement

To view and delete the search history or browsing history that’s associated with your Microsoft account, visit the privacy dashboard.

Browsing laptop
City view

Places you go

Location information helps us give you directions to the places you want to go and show you info relevant to where you are. For this, we use the locations you provide or that we’ve detected using technologies like GPS or IP addresses.

Detecting location also helps us protect you. For example, if you almost always sign in from Tokyo, and suddenly you’re signing in from London, we can check to make sure it’s really you.

You can turn location services on or off for your device, choose which apps have access to your location, and manage the location data stored on your device. To learn more, see Windows location service and your privacy.

Read about location in the Privacy Statement

To view and delete the location activity that’s associated with your Microsoft account, visit the privacy dashboard.

Data that helps us assist you

You can use Cortana to help manage your calendar, keep your schedule up to date, join meetings, find facts and files, and just make things easier. To provide you with personalized experiences, Cortana learns from certain data about you, such as info from your searches, calendar, contacts, and location. To learn more, including how to manage your data, see Cortana and your privacy.

Read about Cortana in the Privacy Statement

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Retail store

Data we use to show more interesting ads

Some Microsoft services are supported by advertising. To show ads you’re more likely to be interested in, we use data like your location, Bing web searches, Microsoft or advertiser webpages you view, demographics, and things you’ve favorited. We don’t target ads to you by using what you say in email, chat, video calls, or voice mail, or in your documents or other personal files.

You can change your ad settings to stop Microsoft from showing you ads based on your interests. You’ll still see ads, but they may not be as interesting to you.

Read about advertising in the Privacy Statement

To change your ad settings, visit the privacy dashboard.

To choose whether you want to receive promotional emails and newsletters from Microsoft, change your communications settings.

Sign-in and payment data

We store your Microsoft account sign-in info and your payment instrument info if you choose to associate one with your Microsoft account. We do this to make it easier for you to sign in and pay for apps, games, or media.

To update passwords, security info, and payment options, find info on how to keep your account secure, and to view your recent sign-in activity, visit the Microsoft account website.

Read about Microsoft accounts in the Privacy Statement

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Privacy settings in Microsoft products

The Microsoft Support website has links and instructions to help you find privacy settings for other Microsoft products.

Learn more about managing your personal data

To view and clear the data that Microsoft saves to the cloud for the Microsoft products and services you use, visit the privacy dashboard. To learn more about how to exercise your rights to access your personal data, visit our Privacy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

Contact the privacy team

If you're not able to find what you’re looking for, or you have a privacy question or concern—contact our privacy team.

Enterprise and business customers

For enterprise and business customers, IT admins, or anyone using Microsoft products at work, check out the Microsoft Trust Center to get information about privacy and security in our products and services.