According to Microsoft’s documentation, a user can only change the setting to enable or disable the new People section three times a year.
If I hadn't abandoned OneDrive already, this would make me do so.
Microsoft's OneDrive spots your mates, remembers their faces, and won't forget easily
Submitted 3 weeks ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/13/microsoft_face_grouping_ondrive/
Comments
Australis13@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yeah but they are taking your data from the laptop your mum bought yesterday and put all the family vacation pictures on. Mum didn’t know she had to kill off OneDrive or Microsoft will hoover up and monetise your memories.
Australis13@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Fortunately not... I'm generally the one responsible for IT maintenance with my parents' as they get older. Disabled OneDrive long ago since they don't use it.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
By mates, do they mean buddies or procreative partners?
markz@suppo.fi 3 weeks ago
Australians
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Both are good
floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Ha, joke’s on you Microsoft: I don’t have any mates.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think that’s why it’s recommended to encrypt files containing personal information with a separate tool before uploading them to any cloud service. It prevents big data from automatically processing your Information and protects you from leaks.
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Why are they using electricity for stuff no one asked for? It seems to be too cheap over there…
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But if we feed enough data to the AI slop machine, one day you can get your own Knight Rider car! /s
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I’m holding out for an Airwolf or Street Hawk.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
Microsoft spend a fortune on funding “renewable” energy to power their data centres, and also have their own private on-site “renewable” power generation at many of their data centres.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
Why do you think no one asks for stuff like this? Facial recognition is one of the best features of photo storage systems as it lets you easily find all of your photos that have certain people in them. It’s fantastic for making shared albums with family members where any pics of certain people are automatically added once recognized.
Onedrive having it makes using Onedrive for photo storage and sharing a much better experience.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Only if it can be done locally. I don’t want my fucking face going out to a bunch of asshole corporations databases any more than absolutely necessary.
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
If you really want it, you should be able to enable it. No reason to do that with the other 90% who don’t need it.
Melusine@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 3 weeks ago
In Europe this probably goes against GDPR, right? If I don’t agree, they should not collect my face
badbytes@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Give MS a bunch of fake mates. Fill their models with NOISE.
Reygle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m done defending idiots. Use sh%t, get hit.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
Not sure why people are talking about the “you can only enable or disable it 3 times a year” as if it’s an issue? This is generally a thing you’d either turn off or on once, depending on what it defaults to. Why would anyone need to turn it on or off 3 times in a year?
nulluser@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Why would anyone need to turn it on or off 3 times in a year?
Why would they need to limit you?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
Irrelevant. Why would anyone need to turn it on or off 3 times in a year?
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So, will this look through porn videos as well? Asking for a friend.
pirat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Now you can easily find all the porn videos you have collected of any of your friends!
GaryGhost@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Get a second drive, SD card, USB, ssd whatever and have it just for your back ups. If your back up drive fails, well, fuck
DimberDamber@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Jokes on them, I have no friends.
needanke@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
However, it is that seemingly arbitrary three-times-a-year limit applied to the People section that is most concerning. Why not four? Why not as many times as a user wants?
If it works the same way Immich does, probably because they have to retrain the models every time you turn it back on and want to aboid poeple turning it on when they need it, then off again, then back on, … Although a less shitty mehod would be to limit the amount of times you can turn it on but I guess that iterferes with their goal of harvesting your data.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
IMO current best case scenario
Jaysyn@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
WTF is up with MS doing this rate limiting? I just learned that Win11 will lock you out of your own machine for 2 hours if you restart too many times, like if you have a dualboot and are doing something that requires restarts to resolve.
P1nkman@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What the shit? Ooh, I need to test this on my work computer!
mybuttnolie@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
it’s a very good feature. if you have too much work and need a longer break, just restart a few times. i may need to change my work laptop from macbook to a windows
BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is why I decided to dual-boot Ubuntu and Win10 until I’m fully comfortable on Linux. Every since thing about Win11 just makes my skin crawl.
Last week it was the news that they’re eliminating methods to install the OS at all without being signed into a MS account. The degree of snooping had no plausible explanation other than for Microsoft to harvest and sell your data.
markko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As someone who was in your exact position several years ago, nice!
I’d recommend Linux Mint to newcomers though. It’s based on Ubuntu and is even easier to get comfortable with (much better GUI for updates and app “store”), but it strips out all the Microsoft-like stuff that Canonical have been doing in recent years.
Pop!_OS (also based on Ubuntu) and Bazzite are also meant to be beginner friendly, and are particularly geared towards gaming on Linux, especially the latter.
Junkernaught@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
You won’t regret it! Ubuntu is a solid choice for your first foray into Linux.
Routhinator@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
Preventing their shitty brute force protection from allowing someone to get a uses MS account password because they are FORCING users to use a non-local account?
The computer would have to store a hash locally to authenticate that account offline, so this is very likely why this is here. Because they’ve enabled a path to brute forcing their cloud accounts without their servers knowing.
The windows shithole is just layers of bad design all the way down.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
SMH a workaround for a workaround to enable their shitty surveillance. Pure genius.