33 ms·

Windows 10 spies on everything you do, and presumably windows 11 does to a greater degree. Your windows photos app has over 122 tables [0] of analysis on every

Windows 10 spies on everything you do, and presumably windows 11 does to a greater degree. Your windows photos app has over 122 tables [0] of analysis on every picture on your machine. It does facial recognition and more and likely reports a lot of this back to ms. That’s just one app! [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8zk1yy/a_simple_analysis_of_what_local_data_the_photos/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8zk1yy/a_simple_...

Springtime 1y ago
> Your windows photos app... does facial recognition and more and likely reports a lot of this back to ms. That’s just one app! The link you cite though was careful to avoid making claims that couldn't be substantiated. It lists only what is in the database locally and the telemetry section doesn't include image content/metadata but user interactions with the app itself.
- callamdelaney 1y ago
  Yep the post is also 7 years old. I suspect there is a lot more going on now, but I haven’t investigated in a while.
madeofpalk 1y ago
> more and likely reports a lot of this back to ms Isn’t this the literal definition of FUD? Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I would like to hope the orange site approaches this topic with more substance. Do the analysis of network traffic to see what gets sent home. Decompile the binary to check it out for these sorts of things. Don’t just write your anti-MS fanfic and pretend that it’s something meaningful. People and object detection are pretty baseline features for a photo management app these days IMHO. I like that my photos app automatically finds all the photos of my dog.
- callamdelaney 1y ago
  Why would it need to be performing facial analysis and have over 120 tables of information in the first place?
  - madeofpalk 1y ago
    Automatic albums of people is table stakes for a photo management app. Everyone has it - Apple Photos, Google Photos, Immich, etc. That requires facial detection.
    - callamdelaney 1y ago
      I disagree. I don’t want that feature. None of the photo apps I use by choice have it, and I’ve never once used it on iOS. It creates multiple albums for the same person anyway so it’s useless.
      - afavour 1y ago
        You not wanting it != table stakes for a photo app. I use it, my family uses it, my friends use it. Anecdotal data to be sure. But I think if barely anyone used it you wouldn’t see it as a base feature in almost every photo sharing app.
        callamdelaney 1y ago
        That’s like saying an AI co-pilot is table stakes for an operating system. It isn’t.
        Spivak 1y ago
        It is how the default photos app for ios and android work and have worked for years. If you can't search by person or by the content of the photo you're falling behind.
        amlib 1y ago
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > I would like to hope the orange site approaches this topic with more substance. You won't find that here if Microsoft/Windows is in the title. HN will default to FUD on anything from Redmond. How many here complaining about analysis in the photos app on Windows also sync all their photos to iCloud or Google Photos, which does the exact same thing? I bet it's a lot.
afavour 1y ago
Hm, the word “likely” is doing a lot of work there. If anything local storage of this stuff is encouraging, it suggests at least the possibility that this isn’t all living in the cloud. But it’s being interpreted as a negative with an unsubstantiated assumption about how the data is being used. I’d also like to think we could have a better discussion on HN than “big number scary”. 122 tables sounds like a lot, sure. They could denormalise the whole dataset and keep it in one table, key/value store style. Would that be better? It’s a photo app with facial recognition. Stands to reason that it needs to store facial recognition data.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  The qualifier that confused me was for every image. For what conceivable reason would they make 122 tables of analytics per image? ( ╹ ▽ ╹ )
lofaszvanitt 1y ago
Windows has info about everything. Even have a history of USB drives ever plugged into the system. Maybe all this for when someone gets in the crosshairs and an infiltrator squad can swoop up all the info to use against the individual.
- callamdelaney 1y ago
  Yep pretty sure the images will remain in the windows photos database, at least hashes and descriptions etc after you’ve deleted them

Springtime 1y ago

> Your windows photos app... does facial recognition and more and likely reports a lot of this back to ms. That’s just one app! The link you cite though was careful to avoid making claims that couldn't be substantiated. It lists only what is in the database locally and the telemetry section doesn't include image content/metadata but user interactions with the app itself.

callamdelaney 1y ago
Yep the post is also 7 years old. I suspect there is a lot more going on now, but I haven’t investigated in a while.

madeofpalk 1y ago

> more and likely reports a lot of this back to ms Isn’t this the literal definition of FUD? Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I would like to hope the orange site approaches this topic with more substance. Do the analysis of network traffic to see what gets sent home. Decompile the binary to check it out for these sorts of things. Don’t just write your anti-MS fanfic and pretend that it’s something meaningful. People and object detection are pretty baseline features for a photo management app these days IMHO. I like that my photos app automatically finds all the photos of my dog.

callamdelaney 1y ago
Why would it need to be performing facial analysis and have over 120 tables of information in the first place?
- madeofpalk 1y ago
  Automatic albums of people is table stakes for a photo management app. Everyone has it - Apple Photos, Google Photos, Immich, etc. That requires facial detection.
  - callamdelaney 1y ago
    I disagree. I don’t want that feature. None of the photo apps I use by choice have it, and I’ve never once used it on iOS. It creates multiple albums for the same person anyway so it’s useless.
    - afavour 1y ago
      You not wanting it != table stakes for a photo app. I use it, my family uses it, my friends use it. Anecdotal data to be sure. But I think if barely anyone used it you wouldn’t see it as a base feature in almost every photo sharing app.
      - callamdelaney 1y ago
        That’s like saying an AI co-pilot is table stakes for an operating system. It isn’t.
        Spivak 1y ago
        It is how the default photos app for ios and android work and have worked for years. If you can't search by person or by the content of the photo you're falling behind.
        amlib 1y ago
thewebguyd 1y ago
> I would like to hope the orange site approaches this topic with more substance. You won't find that here if Microsoft/Windows is in the title. HN will default to FUD on anything from Redmond. How many here complaining about analysis in the photos app on Windows also sync all their photos to iCloud or Google Photos, which does the exact same thing? I bet it's a lot.

afavour 1y ago

Hm, the word “likely” is doing a lot of work there. If anything local storage of this stuff is encouraging, it suggests at least the possibility that this isn’t all living in the cloud. But it’s being interpreted as a negative with an unsubstantiated assumption about how the data is being used. I’d also like to think we could have a better discussion on HN than “big number scary”. 122 tables sounds like a lot, sure. They could denormalise the whole dataset and keep it in one table, key/value store style. Would that be better? It’s a photo app with facial recognition. Stands to reason that it needs to store facial recognition data.

ffsm8 1y ago
The qualifier that confused me was for every image. For what conceivable reason would they make 122 tables of analytics per image? ( ╹ ▽ ╹ )

lofaszvanitt 1y ago

Windows has info about everything. Even have a history of USB drives ever plugged into the system. Maybe all this for when someone gets in the crosshairs and an infiltrator squad can swoop up all the info to use against the individual.

callamdelaney 1y ago
Yep pretty sure the images will remain in the windows photos database, at least hashes and descriptions etc after you’ve deleted them