Title

The Help Improve Proofing Tools feature for Office must be configured. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

This policy setting controls whether the Help Improve Proofing Tools feature sends usage data to Microsoft. The Help Improve Proofing Tools feature collects data about use of the Proofing Tools, such as additions to the custom dictionary, and sends it to Microsoft. After about six months, the feature stops sending data to Microsoft and deletes the data collection file from the user's computer. If you enable this policy setting, this feature is enabled if users choose to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). If your organization has policies that govern the use of external resources such as the CEIP, allowing the use of the Help Improve Proofing Tools feature might cause them to violate these policies. If you disable this policy setting, the Help Improve Proofing Tools feature does not collect proofing tool usage information and transmit it to Microsoft. If you do not configure this policy setting, the behavior is the equivalent of setting the policy to "Enabled".

Check Content

Verify the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2016 -> Tools \ Options \ Spelling -> Proofing Data Collection "Improve Proofing Tools" is set to "Disabled". Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\common\ptwatson Criteria: If the value PTWOptIn is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2016 -> Tools \ Options \ Spelling -> Proofing Data Collection "Improve Proofing Tools" to "Disabled".

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-238024r879887_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-238024

Group Title: SRG-APP-000516

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.