Microsoft Recall: Privacy nightmare or photographic helper?

Feature stores frequent screenshots of your PC use

Microsoft's new AI feature is meant to take the frustration out of PC use, but campaigners - and regulators - have concerns.

Microsoft is taking a step towards enhancing user productivity with the introduction of its latest AI feature, Windows Recall. Unveiled on Monday, it says the new functionality will transform how users interact with their personal computers by making the process of retrieving past information effortless and intuitive.

However, according to the BBC, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has asked Microsoft for more information on the safety of the product, which privacy campaigners have called a potential "privacy nightmare".

What is Recall?

The Recall feature enables the Copilot AI assistant to search a timeline of users' activities across any application, website or document. This timeline is organised based on relationships and associations unique to each user, supposedly making it easy to retrieve information based on personal cues, such as locating a specific email in Outlook or jumping back into a Teams chat.

Microsoft says Recall is an "optional experience" and that it is committed to privacy and security.

"We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we have seen before on our PC," Microsoft said on its blog. "Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails trying to find it. Now with Recall, you can access virtually what you have seen or done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic memory."

Addressing privacy concerns

To address privacy concerns, Microsoft says it has implemented robust control features within Recall. Users can manage their snapshots, which are stored locally on their device, ensuring personal data remains private. Individual snapshots can also be deleted, time ranges adjusted or erased and the feature can be paused or customised through settings in the System Tray on the Taskbar.

But an ICO spokesperson told the BBC that firms must "rigorously assess and mitigate risks to peoples' rights and freedoms" before bringing any new products to market.

"We are making enquiries with Microsoft to understand the safeguards in place to protect user privacy."

Recall can search through all of a user's past activity including files, photos, emails and browsing history. While many devices can already do this, Recall also takes screenshots every few seconds and searches these too. Campaigners are concerned that Recall could become a "privacy nightmare" because screenshots will be taken during use of the device.

Microsoft, however, says it "built privacy into Recall's design" from the beginning, and users will have control over what is captured.

Microsoft's Copilot+PCs launch

Microsoft introduced Recall at a special event on its new campus this week. At the same time it launched Copilot+ PCs, a new category of AI-powered Windows computers. These devices, it says, are "the fastest and most intelligent Windows PCs ever," featuring silicon capable of 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second) and "all-day" battery life.