While most of the posts in this blog are meant to educate potential clients and provide a bit more insight into the process of architectural photography to non-photographers, I thought I’d take a break and perform a brief PSA for the few photographers that somehow make it this far into my website.

The Problem

So, it appears Wacom is actively recording the name of every application you’re using on your computer while your tablet is up and running. Wacom's official driver comes with a vague privacy policy that if accepted will begin tracking the apps a user opens on his device. These data are collected using Google Analytics and then shared with who knows how many entities. Unfortunately, Wacom considers this to be “aggregate usage data, technical session information and information about Your hardware device,” even if those apps have nothing to do with your Wacom tablet.

Early in February 2020, software engineer Robert Heaton discovered this behavior and published a report on it after doing some sleuthing. He was curious about his own drawing tablet after installing the drivers required him to accept a privacy policy. Why does a device that is essentially a mouse need a privacy policy!?!? The original report is really worth the read and includes all the gritty details, I highly encourage everyone to read it.

Wacom doesn’t deny that its tablets are tracking your general app usage. Instead, the company explains that you’ve consented to the tracking — presumably by accepting the privacy policy — and that it’s all part of the “Wacom Experience Program.” So reassuring…

The Solution

Fortunately, if you own a Wacom tablet and don’t want to send this data, open up the Wacom Desktop Center, click More, click Privacy Settings, and deactivate the Wacom Experience Program.