I wanted to react to a posting about a change in the installation process for Intel oneAPI - supporting Steve Lionel’s comment about it (I quote it below:
Re: oneAPI Base Toolkit, Offline installation requires online
I imagine there are many types of customers who would not allow data collection of any kind. This was a bad move.
– end quotation)
I normally log in via a single-use pass key (as I was not able to reset my password several moons ago and found this at least a workable alternative). But today I found that I also have to give my telephone number so that Intel can send me an SMS for further confirmation.
In my opinion that is a ridiculous step. Why is this required? Making sure it is me is not helped in any way as I could be an imposter using any phone, but more importantly, why should I give Intel my phone number? That feels like a violation of my privacy. I can imagine measures like this for communicating with the bank or gouvernmental institutes, but not a company like Intel.
Even more disturbing to me is that you can no longer opt out of the compiler “phoneing home” data collection (now without your knowledge). Who in their right mind is going to use anything connected to the internet that send any information from your computer back to someone or something without your knowledge. Has Intel lost its collective mind. Sadly, this is a deal breaker for me as far as continued use of Intel compilers.
I’ve also complained about repeatedly needing 2FA, but the people who could answer that won’t. (It isn’t the compiler team.) There are multiple issues with the Intel customer-facing login system, and this 2FA thing is the latest.
Arjen’s quote of my text was in reference to the data collection policy change. I’ve made my opinions known to my Intel contacts, but I’m guessing that they don’t have influence over the decision (the installation stuff is done by another team entirely.) All I can suggest is that the more people who complain to Intel (not here), the better chance of the decision being reversed.
The telemetry (phone home) gather is NOT done by the Intel Compilers. that installation message about opt-in or opt-out of use data is for Vtune and Advisor tools, NOT the compiler. Unfortunately the team creating the installers did not bother to mention that fact. If you install compilers alone, no data collection.
I was not aware of the 2FA login for the Community Forums. That is unfortunate. I will see if there is anything I can do, but as Steve says, it is NOT the Compiler team in charge of the Forum software used by Intel Corporation.
But the install message about data collection is also in the compiler-only install. Even if it was just for other components, not providing an opt-out flies in the face of decades of precedent and requirements by major paying customers. Whoever decided to force this on should be fired taught the error of their ways.
I always face issues there. Even if I provide them my phone number. Some of the questions I posted were not visible, other times there is a delay in login.
FWIW, the lack of an opt-out option may violate the European Union’s GDPR laws (https://gdpr-info.eu/), though I am not a lawyer, so it is only a guess on my side.
Having worked as a contractor at one of the DoDs HPC centers for several years I’m fairly certain that DoD or any of the other US Gov’t labs (who I assume are paying customers) are going to think twice about installing anything on their systems that will send data back to Intel no matter how “anonymous” Intel thinks the data transfer is.
It appears to be an error in the oneAPI installers. There has been a large number of customer complaints from all our tools. A fix is in the works to correct this and put the “opt in / opt out” back into the installer flow.
