Privacy issue as Microsoft remembers Store downloads for even Local users

With Windows 8, Microsoft introduced two types of user accounts- Microsoft Account and Local Account. While Microsoft Account allowed users to take full advantage of Microsoft’s online services, the Local Account was more of a private isolated system. However, this changed in 2016 when Microsoft allowed Local Accounts to access the integrated Microsoft Store to download apps or games from the Store.

It looks like Microsoft does, however, save the App history for Local accounts as well. This is usually done to make sure the in-app purchases and the download details are always available to the user since the Local account doesn’t use an MSA to store these details. That said, it will be an issue in case the user decides to sell the device as this information can’t be erased. The data seems to be linked to the hardware ID of the device and formatting or resetting the device won’t delete the data. This means if the user decides to sell the device in the future, the new owner will have full access to all the apps installed on the device.

This brings the basic right to privacy into question and is a serious issue as people tend to sell their old tablets or laptops when buying a new one. This would, however, be fixed if Microsoft just adds an option to wipe off the app downloads list and everything associated with it. We do hope that Microsoft takes this into consideration for the future updates.

Via: gHacks