- [Instructor] I just launched the Maps application
on my computer.
The first time you launch some applications,
you may see a question like this.
This application is asking for permission
to access my location,
and there are other types of permissions
that applications might ask for.
So let's talk about these permissions
and the privacy issues that they're designed to protect.
So my computer can identify its physical location
based on the internet connection.
It's a great and useful feature,
but you should stop and think about
whether you want this specific application
to be able to access that.
Do you trust the app?
Why does it need that information and so on?
And other applications may ask to access
your computer's camera or your address book
and lots of other things.
So first, you should answer these questions
as best as you can when you see them,
but later, if you want to change that answer,
or if you just want to get an idea of which applications
have been granted various permissions,
you can go to Windows settings.
So in the Start Menu,
we'll go to Settings.
On the left, we'll go to the Privacy and Security category.
Then you should scroll down
and we want to focus on the sub-categories
under App Permissions.
Lots of sub-categories here
for different features of your computer
that applications might want permission for.
Let's start with Location.
And there are a few global options.
This first switch will let you disable location data
entirely on your computer.
Then, on this line that says let apps access your location,
you can set it so that no app can access
your location data at all.
But most people leave those global options turned on,
then you can go to this list of every application
that might want to access your location
and you can turn this permission on or off
for any of these one by one.
If you turn it off for one application now,
then launch that application later,
it may ask for that permission then,
and you can always say no at that time.
Now location is just one example.
We can back up by clicking on Privacy
and Security up at the top,
scroll down again
and look at these sub-categories for app permissions.
So you should look at these and consider
what your apps are able to use.
Let's go to the Camera option.
So which apps can turn on
and see through your computer's camera
can be a major privacy concern.
So again, you could disable
the computer's camera completely,
or you can decide which applications
are allowed to use your camera.
The settings for each of these will generally work the same,
but I'll back up again to Privacy and Security,
and I want to scroll down and think about
the calendar and contacts.
If you go to one of these,
if you were to disable the master switch,
that does not disable your address book on your computer,
it just makes it so that other applications cannot access
and use the contents of your address book.
Now, finally, there is another way
to look at these permissions.
I want to go to the Start Menu
to the list of all applications
and just pick out an application here.
Let's go to the Camera application.
I'll right-click on that, go to More,
and then go to App Settings.
And here, we can see some important information
about this application,
including which features of your computer
it has permission to use.
So you could go to a specific app like this,
then enable or disable those permissions.
For example, if you want to use the camera application
to take pictures,
but you don't want your location data
to be saved to those pictures,
you can disable the location permission
for that application here.
So at the very least,
be aware of when applications ask for permissions like this,
and to be more careful,
I think it's worth a few minutes to check those settings.