Random people showing up in Track Changes??

Anonymous
2023-02-05T00:30:48+00:00

I am doing revisions on a novel and random people are now showing up in the track changes. I have not shared this document with anyone, but it is stored in my OneDrive. How did these people's names get in my document? They are coming up as reviewers and their names are attached to changes I've made.

This is incredibly concerning and a HUGE privacy violation. Has anyone else seen this??

For what it is worth, I've googled these people and I have NO connection to them at all. But one thing I did notice is that LinkedIn profiles appear for all of them near the top of the Google results. One of them is the CMO of Whole Foods?? I, personally, do not have a LinkedIn profile nor have I ever.

Microsoft Word for Mac v16.69.1

macOS 13.2

EDIT: I updated the screenshot to remove content of document.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | MacOS

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-02-07T04:41:24+00:00

    Thanks for the clarification.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-02-07T18:55:13+00:00

    This is clearly some kind of bug. We had the same issue so I made a test document and had 5 people edit it with Tracked Changes on. Everything seemed fine but eventually I reopened it and saw it added an "Author" to my list of Specific People. Author was listed as having made some formatting changes that I had made. It seems most if not all of the changes from these phantom accounts we've seen have been formatting and we've confirmed no one unauthorized has accessed the files.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-08T09:20:52+00:00

    I have recentlly seen this in my organisation, both on SharePoint and Onedrive hosted Word docs. The true authors tracked changes are replaced at some time during editing by another persons name. One of the docs, the same formatting is attributed to 3 different random people over an hour period - w've been looking back through previous versions.

    One of the questions I have, is what is the source where these names could be coming from. They are not guests in our Azure Active Directory, and none of the authors of the affected documents have any knowledge of the individuals. The contact card where the formatting change is recorded also does not show any information.

    This does look like a bug, as the permissions on the SharePoint site / OneDrive location do not allow any guests or external users, however this raises concerns with users, when an unknown name just appears on a document.

    The documents are also created from scratch, and not using templates.

    Gareth

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  5. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2023-02-08T14:34:45+00:00

    To report a bug, first be sure to have the latest current channel update installed. Use the Menu Bar in Word and choose Word > About Microsoft Word to display the version you have. 16.69 and 16.70 are the current update versions.

    Then, when the issue presents itself as you are working, use the Menu Bar and choose Help > Feedback > I Don't Like Something and describe what is happening. Be sure to include your contact information in case Microsoft wants to ask you about your submission. Microsoft won't bother you at all or even acknolwedge your submission unless they need additional information.

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