[Hardware] I've asked NVIDIA to tell me what it knows about me and… it's scary

[Draeno]

 

We often talk about the data collected by Google, Facebook or Microsoft, among other applications and social networks. The other day, exploring GeForce Experience I ended up coming across an option that lets me know what data NVIDIA has on me. The response has given me several surprises, some of the information that it collects is quite worrying.

Any user with an NVIDIA graphics card will have the GeForce Experience tool installed. Said software is used to update drivers, optimize games and take screenshots within games, mostly. But, this tool collects a lot of data and it is not exactly what configuration we have in our games.

Data NVIDIA Collects Through GeForce Experience
I have the privilege of using this tool since before its official release. Before they were released, I was given access to this software and documentation on how it worked and how it gave configuration recommendations. This was possible since he worked in another medium and they suggested that we take out an explanatory article from NVIDIA GeForce Experience and test it. The experience was very good and continues to be very good, the optimizations it does are quite good.

By chance, I came across the option to download the information that NVIDIA has about me. I was curious what data this tool collects and I see data that I don't understand the utility.

The first thing that catches my attention is the full date of birth that it takes from Google. I have the login through my Google account, something that I usually do for comfort so as not to be thinking and remembering dozens of passwords. I understand that this data can be used to identify user niches by age range, but it is worrying that I take this data from Google.

Something that they store is that about two years ago I installed GeForce Now on the mobile, to test it. As I am not convinced, I uninstalled it and I don't use it.

Another thing that he knows, and badly, is my location. Although the country (Spain) and the autonomous community are right, the city is wrong. Specifically, it gives a location that is an hour or so from my current location. I find it interesting that it does not list all the locations in which I have lived, which in the last two years have been five (none of which it says).

 

 

Complete hardware and configuration breakdown
NVIDIA has a record of my last two computers, which are the ones I have used with this software. It knows the processor model, graphics card model, amount of RAM memory, monitor model, resolution and refresh rate. He knows if it is a portable system and the model, or if it is a system that I have assembled myself.

Something you don't know or collect is the storage unit, specifically interface and capacity. It also does not collect which applications I use to access the games, something that catches my attention. It doesn't know if the games I have installed are on Steam, Epic Games Store, Origin or another.

It is also surprising that it does not collect compatibility information with Ray Tracing and DLSS. This is data that could possibly be useful to the company, but since it already obtains data from system components, it will not need this information.

 

 

Time played and other information about it
Of the entire report, what has surprised me the most is the information it gives about the games I have played. First of all, not all of them are there, far from it. The Crysis saga does not appear (well, only the second one appears, although I have also played the first one), which happened to me last year for the umpteenth time, there is no data on FIFA 23 or Warzone 2 either, the games I have been playing lately.

But it collects data from some games and this data is, to say the least, interesting. It collects the number of minutes that I have dedicated to each game, the number of sessions and the average FPS. I must say that it does not match the data on Steam, which is where I have all the games.

The one I have dedicated the most time to is PES 17 with about 57 days of my life, I have dedicated about 53 days to CSGO, about 12 days to FIFA 22 and about 10 days to Minecraft. I must say that I have played Minecraft a lot more, I think I started with version 0.4 or thereabouts of the game and I managed to throw many hours at it. But hey, that's another matter entirely.

I find these super interesting data that are not given to the user. The maximum and minimum FPS rate also seems interesting data to me, although they are not. That Minecraft has worked for me at an average of 4 FPS is normal, it is already known that when the game loads biomes, it gives some important lashes.

time games nvidia geforce experience

How to obtain this data?
The truth is that it is not very difficult to obtain them, although it is a bit tedious. From the same GeForce Experience we can access the web page where we can request this information. These are the steps:

 

We open the GeForce Experience software
We go to Settings, clicking on the gear wheel at the top right or clicking on our profile and accessing Account
Click on NVIDIA Privacy Policy
A web opens in our browser where different information about this policy appears
We scroll down to find Data sharing for personalized advertising and click
It takes us to another page where Request my data appears and we click on this option
Now we go to a page where it tells us Select an account and we must click on Continue
A new website tells us different services from which we can download the collected information, which in our case is that of NVIDIA
We are asked to indicate our account, which will be used in GeForce Experience
We have to go to the email to obtain the PIN that they have sent us to request the information
Now, we just have to wait for them to send us the information. This can take up to a week, approximately.
It is a simple process, but the truth is that it is quite tedious. Please note that we also cannot guarantee that this is all information collected by NVIDIA, only what they tell us they have collected.

 

 

https://hardzone.es/noticias/tarjetas-graficas/privacidad-software-nvidia-geforce/