Hi Robert,
The information is the same as we have collected
previously, as the dialog indicates, OS and NVDA version,
language used, country, synthesizer, Braille diaplsy and
table, This information is collected when NVDA checks for
updates. Nothing secure or private is ever transmitted, no
spoken content or anything like that is shared.
Prompted by the new privacy regulations in the EU, we
wanted to be as open about what data we collect as possible.
For anyone interested, the dialog reads: "In order to
improve NVDA in the future, NV Access wishes to collect usage
data from running copies of NVDA.
Data includes Operating System version, NVDA version,
language, country of origin, plus certain NVDA
configuration such as current synthesizer, braille display
and braille table. No spoken or braille content will be ever
sent to NV Access. Please refer to the User Guide for a
current list of all data collected.
Do you wish to allow NV Access to periodically collect this
data in order to improve NVDA."
We use this information for several purposes:
- Having an idea about many users we have overall is good
to use in promotion.
- Knowing that we have a lot of users in a particular
country enables us to do things like prioritising translating
information for users in that country.
- Conversely, if there is a large country that we are not
reaching, maybe it is because we do not have a translator for
the main language used there and that is something we can
concentrate on looking for.
- Knowing how many users are on a particular version of
Windows allows us to ensure we support what our users are
working on. For instance, when we dropped support for XP, we
knew that only a very small percentage of users were still
using XP.
We try to collect the minimum information possible which
gives us valuable information. You can opt out of this
information collection if you prefer, although it does give us
more useful data if the majority of our users allow it.
