Wacom appears to monitor which programs users open

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After agreeing to the privacy policy, Wacom keeps track of which applications users of its drawing tablets open on their system, without clearly communicating this. The company defends itself by stating that this can be turned off in the settings.

Software developer Robert Heaton discovered that Wacom keeps a record of which applications he opened after he marveled at accepting a privacy policy. “Why should a device that is basically a mouse have a privacy policy,” he wondered.

That privacy policy states the request to consent to the collection and forwarding to Google Analytics of “user data, session information and hardware information”. Using the Wireshark and Burp Suite tools, the developer found that Wacom keeps logs of each time the user opens a new application, including the name and time and a string that Heaton believes is an identifier for him as a user.

The developer has already noted that users can stop collecting by disabling the Wacom Experience Program in the Wacom Desktop Center. He also points out that the company states in its policy that the data will only be used for development purposes, but he does wonder whether the data collection is necessary for something like a mouse.

Wacom responds on Twitter to users’ concerns stating that they can deactivate the Wacom Experience Program in the privacy settings.

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