GPO: Disable telemetry

Microsoft collects a lot of data about your system through telemetry . And contrary to popular belief, Windows 10 is not the only Microsoft operating system to use this technology: on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, telemetry is also present.

ANSSI recommends blocking telemetry.

Since version 1703, Microsoft has provided users with a window for configuring personal data protection settings.

This allows you to configure from a single place:

• The geolocation parameters.
• Sending speech recognition data to Microsoft.
• The collection level of the telemetry service.
• Microsoft’s use of telemetry data for user experience improvement.
• The use of the advertising identifier for targeted advertising purposes.

For a new installation of Windows 10, the installation is not performed until these privacy settings are set.

During an upgrade, notifications will appear to set these privacy settings.

However, for workstations managed by an Active Directory environment (internal or Azure), neither the notifications nor the Installation window for configuring personal data protection settings are presented to users.

On your domain controller, open the Group Policy Management console, right-click on Group Policy Objects, and click Create a GPO in this domain.

Name the strategy and click OK

Once the strategy is created, right click on it and click Modify

Go to: Computer Configuration => Administrative Templates => Windows Components => Data Collection and Preview Versions.

Find the Allow Telemetry option and double click it to open the configuration window. Select Disabled, then click OK.