Privacy Policy

What this feature does: This feature provides a list of all malware or suspected malware that Microsoft Security Essentials detected on your PC and the actions that were taken when these programs were detected. The information displayed in the History tab is for items detected for all users - not per user.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: A list of all malware or suspected malware that Microsoft Security Essentials detected on your computer and the actions taken on these items are stored on your computer. These lists include Microsoft Security Essentials activity for all the local users on the computer. The lists are sent to Microsoft as part of your basic membership in MAPS.

Choice and control: History lists may be deleted by the local computer administrator. By default, all items are displayed for all users. To allow only the local computer administrator to view all items, in the Settings tab, select the Advanced tab and clear the option "Allow all users to view the full History results."

What this feature does: Microsoft Security Essentials turns on automatic updating from Windows Update and Microsoft Update to help keep your computer current with updates to Windows and other Microsoft software. This means any software using Windows and Microsoft Update will be impacted by this change. Microsoft Update is essential to providing you with the latest malware threat definition updates for Microsoft Security Essentials.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: For more information about Windows Update and Microsoft Update, see the Update Services Privacy Statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=76234.

Choice and control: Windows Update and Microsoft Update are turned on by default in order to provide you with the current software and virus signature updates. If you would like to later turn updates off, you can do so through Windows settings. To learn how, see the Update Services Privacy Statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=76234.

What this feature does: Microsoft Security Essentials includes an automatic scanning feature, which scans your computer and alerts you if it detects malware. You can turn automatic scanning on or off and change the frequency and type of scans using the Microsoft Security Essentials Settings tab. You can also choose which actions are automatically applied to software that Microsoft Security Essentials detects during a scheduled scan. For severe/high threats, certain actions will automatically be taken by default to remove the malicious software and protect your computer from potential further infection. Once the malicious software is removed, Microsoft Security Essentials may also reset some Windows settings (such as your home page and search provider). For low/medium threats, we will prompt you to take an action. To modify the actions taken in response to these threats, see the Choice and Control section below.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: A list of all malware or suspected malware that Microsoft Security Essentials detected on your computer and the actions taken on these items are stored on your computer. These lists include Microsoft Security Essentials activity for all the local users on the computer. The lists are sent to Microsoft as part of your basic membership in MAPS.

Choice and control: While not recommended, you can turn off automatic scanning using the Microsoft Security Essentials Settings tab. You can also configure the actions taken for each level of threats in the "Settings" panel of Microsoft Security Essentials.

What this feature does: Microsoft Security Essentials' real-time protection feature alerts you when viruses, spyware and other potentially unwanted software attempts to install itself or run on your PC. For severe/high threats, certain actions will automatically be taken by default to remove the malicious software and protect your computer from potential further infection. Once the malicious software is removed, Microsoft Security Essentials may also reset some Windows settings (such as your home page and search provider). For low/medium threats, we will prompt you to take an action. To modify the actions taken in response to these threats, see the Choice and Control section below.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: A list of all malware or suspected malware that Microsoft Security Essentials detected on your computer and the actions taken on these items are stored on your computer. These lists include Microsoft Security Essentials activity for all the local users on the computer. The lists are sent to Microsoft as part of your basic membership in MAPS.

Choice and control: While not recommended, you can turn off real-time protection using the Microsoft Security Essentials Settings tab. You can also configure the actions taken for each level of threats in the "Settings" panel of Microsoft Security Essentials.

What this feature does: Shell extension is a scanning tool, which lets you select specific files and/or folders and scan them using Microsoft Security Essentials.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: A list of all malware or suspected malware that Microsoft Security Essentials detected on your computer and the actions taken on these items are stored on your computer. These lists include Microsoft Security Essentials activity for all the local users on the computer. These lists are sent to Microsoft as part of your basic membership in MAPS.

Choice and control: The shell extension feature is a manual tool that you can choose to use or not.

What this feature does: The Microsoft Active Protection Service (MAPS) antimalware community is a voluntary, worldwide community that includes Microsoft Security Essentials users. If Microsoft Security Essentials is turned on, MAPS can report malware and other forms of potentially unwanted software to Microsoft. If a MAPS report includes details about malware or potentially unwanted software that Microsoft Security Essentials may be able to remove, MAPS will download the latest signature to address it. MAPS can also find "false positives" (where something originally identified as malware turns out not to be) and fix them.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: This feature sends reports about malware and potentially unwanted software to Microsoft. These reports include information about the files or apps in question, such as file names, cryptographic hash, vendor, size, and date stamps. In addition, MAPS might collect full URLs to indicate the origin of the file, which might occasionally contain personal information such as search terms or data entered in forms. Reports might also include the actions that you applied when Microsoft Security Essentials notified you that software was detected. MAPS reports include this information to help Microsoft gauge the effectiveness of Microsoft Security Essentials' ability to detect and remove malware and potentially unwanted software.

If Microsoft Security Essentials and MAPS are both enabled on your PC, MAPS reports will be automatically sent to Microsoft when:

• Microsoft Security Essentials detects software or changes to your PC by software that hasn’t been analyzed for risks yet.

• Microsoft Security Essentials applies actions to malware (as part of its automatic remediation) upon detection.

• Microsoft Security Essentials completes a scheduled scan and automatically applies actions to software that it detects, according to your settings.

If MAPS reports new malware to Microsoft that Microsoft Security Essentials can remove, new signatures will be automatically downloaded to your computer, helping to protect your machine more rapidly from potential threats.

You can join MAPS with a basic or an advanced membership. If you choose to enable MAPS (for example, when you choose the settings in Microsoft Security Essentials Setup), you join with a basic membership. Basic member reports contain the information described in this section. Advanced member reports are more comprehensive and might occasionally contain personal information from, for example, file paths and partial memory dumps. These reports, along with reports from other Microsoft Security Essentials users who are participating in MAPS, help our researchers discover new threats more rapidly. Malware definitions are then created for apps that meet the analysis criteria, and the updated definitions are made available to all users through Windows Update.

If you join MAPS with a basic or an advanced membership, Microsoft might request a sample submission report. This report contains specific files from your PC that Microsoft suspects might be potentially unwanted software. The report is used for further analysis. You will be asked each time if you want to send this sample submission report to Microsoft.

To help protect your privacy, reports that are sent to Microsoft are encrypted.

Use of information: MAPS reports are used to improve Microsoft software and services. The reports might also be used for statistical or other testing or analytical purposes, and for generating definitions. Only Microsoft employees, contractors, partners, and vendors who have a business need to use the reports are provided access to them. MAPS does not intentionally collect personal information. To the extent that MAPS collects any personal information, Microsoft does not use the information to identify you or contact you.

Choice and control: You may choose your MAPS membership—basic or advanced—or settings while installing Microsoft Security Essentials. After installation, you can change your MAPS membership or settings at any time by using the Tools menu in Microsoft Security Essentials in the desktop Control Panel. Please note that MAPS only operates if Microsoft Security Essentials has been enabled on your computer.

What this feature does: Microsoft Security Essentials also collects and reports on errors that occur in the software.

Error reports include information about problems that occur in the Microsoft Security Essentials software.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted: Error reports might unintentionally contain personal information. For example, reports might contain the names of folders on your computer that could include the name of your Windows user account. Microsoft doesn't use this information to identify you or contact you. To learn more about error reports, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=56274.

Use of information: Error reports help Microsoft keep this software in good working condition so that we can help protect your computer against potential threats.

Choice and control: This feature is on by default, and error reports are automatically sent to Microsoft.

You can disable the automatic reporting of errors that may contain the names of folders on your computer by creating:

1. a registry value named "DisableGenericReports" with any type or value under "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Essentials"

2. a registry REG_DWORD value named "DisableGenericReports" with value ‘1’ under "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Reporting"

NOTE: By making this registry change, it will be applied to only Microsoft Security Essentials and not impact other products or services using Error Reporting.

CAUTION: Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on the computer. You can also use the “Last Known Good Configuration” startup option if you encounter problems after manual changes have been applied.